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A LITTLE JOURNEY 
TO GERMANY 



FOR 

INTERMEDIATE AND UPPER GRADES 



PART I, NORTH GERMANY 
PART II, THE RHINELAND 



EDITED BY 

MARIAN M. GEORGE 



Chicago 
A. FLANAGAN COMPANY 






THE LI8WRV OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies R«c«iv*4 

DEC 29 1902 

Copyright Entry 

CUSS Q^ XXc. N*. 

14~ (^ h I 
COPY B. 



A. 



Copyright 1902 
by 
FLANAGAN COMPANY 



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A Little Journey 

to North Germany 



THE LAND- OF SONG 

Where is the German's fatherland? 
Is't Swabia? - Is't Prussia's strand? 
Is't where the grape grows on the Rhine? 
Or sea-gulls sMm the Baltic's brine? 
Oh, no! more great, more grand, 
Must be the German's fatherland! 

Where is the German's fatherland? 
Bavaria or Illyria's strand? 
Is't where the sand wafts on the shore? 
Is't where the Danube's surges roar? 
Oh, no! more great, more grand. 
Must be the German's fatherland! 

Where is the German's fatherland? 
Say, how is named that mighty land? 
Is't Tyrol? Where the Switzers dwell? 
The land and people please me well. 
Oh, no! more great, more grand, 
Must be the German's fatherland! 

Where is the German's fatherland? 
Oh, name to me the mighty land! 
Where'er resounds the German tongue, 
Where'er its hymns to God are sung, 
This it shall be, this it shall be, 
German, it belongs to thee. 

In Central Europe is a great country which stands 
in the forefront among the busy, prosperous nations 
of the world — the German' Empire. In commerce 
and industry Germany holds its own with any country. 



4 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

In the practical arts and sciences it is away ahead of 

us all. 

We are going to Germany to see its sights: its 
cities full of imposing buildings, parks, palaces and 
art galleries; its curious old towns and fine old castles 
where great events have left their mark these thou- 
sand years; its lovely scenery along the Rhine and 
Danube rivers— bits of country rich in legend; its 
ancient forests, and quaint villages, and well-tilled 
farm lands; and busy factories, and mines, and canals, 
and harbors, and docks; and its people. Some one 
has said that the German nation is composed of 
people, soldiers, and students. 

What suits the boys who hke warfare and warriors 
above everything else is that soldiers grow on every 
bush in Germany, which is the first military nation in 
the world. All along its frontier are fortresses garri- 
soned by well-disciplined soldiers ready for war at a 
moment's notice. The fortresses are connected by rail- 
roads and underground telegraph lines; and almost 
every town in the empire has its barracks and soldiers 
and military supplies. 

Some of us are interested in the student part of the 
people. We like to visit good schools, and in Ger- 
many are the best of schools of every grade, from 
kindergartens up to imiversities. All of us enjoy 
good music, and Germany is the home of music. It 
is the country to which music students throng from all 
parts of the earth. Most of the world's greatest 
composers have been Germans. We shall hear their 
masterpieces played by the best orchestras and sung 
by the best choruses, as we travel through the empire. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 5 

We must divide our journey in two, for this is not a 
small country, to be seen in a month. It extends from 




MUSIC IN THE HOME 



the German Ocean, or North Sea, Denmark, and the 
Baltic, on the north, to Austria and Switzerland on 
the south; and from Holland, Belgium and France, 



G A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

on the west, to Russia and Austria on the east, having 
an area of 206,575 square miles and a population of 
56,367,178. 

The empire consists of twenty-six states, somewhat 
as our own country is composed. Four of these 
divisions are kingdoms : Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and 
Wurtemberg; three are "free towns" (which rule 
themselves) Bremen, Hamburg and Lubeck; and 
the rest are either principalities (territories ruled by 
princes) or duchies (those ruled by dukes). Form- 
erly all were independent nations; and each king, 
prince and duke tried to outdo the rest in enrich- 
ing his own capital city. So Germany is full of fine 
cities. 

Almost the whole of northern Germany is occupied 
by the Kingdom of Prussia. Less than forty years 
ago, when the German states were still independent 
nations, Prussia went to war with France. As the 
people of the other German states all spoke the same 
language as the Prussians, and had much the same 
customs, they took her part in the war, and finally 
united to help her defeat France. This was the 
Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. It closed with 
the battle of Sedan, in which the Germans were vic- 
torious. 

The German people, feeling friendly on acount of 
their victory, decided to unite in one great empire. 
The combined German armies marched into Paris, 
took possession of the French royal palace at Ver- 
sailles, and there, in May, 1871, crowned William of 
Prussia as the first Emperor of Germany. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 7 

We shall first make a tour of North Germany, 
which is divided from South Germany by the River 
Main. North Germany is often called Protestant 
Germany, as the Protestant Church is there supported 
by the government. It is a level country, crossed by 
several large rivers and numerous canals, and is bor- 
dered on the west and south by low mountains noted 
for their picturesque scenery. From our guide books 
wemap out our tour thus : 

1. Berlin, the capital of the Empire, noted for its 
palaces and schools. 

2. Potsdam, the city of palaces. 

3. The Spreewald, a quaint forest region. 

4. The Harz Mountains, long far-famed as the abode 
of witches and hobgoblins. 

5. Hamburg, the chief commercial city of Europe, 
and other Baltic coast cities. 

6. Dresden, noted for its art galleries and por- 
celain works. 

7. Leipsic, a book trade and music center. 

8. Towns famous as the homes of celebrated people. 
We shall find these as we go. 

A night train from Paris carries us swiftly across 
'Hhe Fatherland" to Berlin, its largest city and cap- 
ital. When we rub our eyes at daybreak, we see 
from our car windows dark clouds against the eastern 
sky — ^not clouds, either, but towers and domes and 
smoke-stacks and roofs. The black mass spreading 
wide ahead of us, and seeming to reach the sky, is 
Berlin. 

We need not gather our bundles in haste, for it 
takes a long time to reach the city, when once we have 



8 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

come in sight of it. Lying in the center of a level 
plain, the homes and shops of Berlin's two and a 
quarter million of people are visible from afar. 

BERLIN 

At last we arrive in the vast railway station. We 
look about us, puzzled what to do, for we speak but 
little German and know not how to find our hotel. 
There are no advertisements to be seen, no clamoring 
cabmen to be heard. Who will guide us? A railway 
porter in blue uniform answers our question b}^ hand- 
ing us a metal tag like a baggage check and waving us 
toward the door. At the street entrance another 
official takes the tag, looks at the number marked 
upon it, and summons the proper cabman. A word 
of direction, and away we go over the smoothest of 
asphalt pavements. 

What a scene of life and activity are these Berlin 
streets! People stream up and down the walks like 
the figures in a moving picture. The streets are as 
clean as the floor of a lady's parlor. Lofty buildings 
line them on both sides. There is a glitter of shop 
windows, a gleam of marble statuary in open squares, 
a glimpse of some palace, or carved bridge, or flower- 
decked platz (or square), or parliament building. 

The streets of Berlin show solid fronts of great high, 
stucco-finished rococo buildings. The effect is im- 
posing, and quite different from the appearance of 
most of our cities, with houses of all sizes, shapes and 
colors. There are no black roofs, unpainted sheds, 
wooden fences and muddy streets and sidewalks. 

All manner of vehicles roll past us — ambulances and 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 9 

truck carts, and droshkies (or cabs), and electric street 
cars, and bicycles, and fine equipages with liveried 
coachmen, and milk carts drawn by dogs, and market 
carts drawn by peasant women. Trains on the ele- 
vated railway thunder over our heads, and trains on 
the underground street railway rumble beneath us, 
if we but knew it. But their noise does not reach us. 

Here is an army of street cleaners at work, men and 
boys in neat uniform. They are sweeping, washing 
and scraping the pavement, while garbage carts are 
being loaded with refuse from the ornamental iron 
tanks ranged along the streets. Whatever is offen- 
sive is at once taken from the streets and placed in 
these iron receptacles. 

The street cleaners are as dainty about their work 
as so many hospital nurses. They have artistic- 
looking shovels, and brooms, and covered wheel- 
barrows, and rubber scrapers. The very water carts 
are handsome in design. We see a leaf drift down 
upon the street: a man in uniform straightway 
springs to remove it. A newsboy drops a fragment of 
paper: a policeman makes him pick it up. Not a 
scrap of paper or refuse of any kind is allowed to re- 
main on these finely kept streets. 

We see maid servants going from market, with their 
purchases in baskets carefully covered with cloths; 
and factory workmen hastening hither and thither, 
pipes in their mouths. 

There are policemen in uniforms of much splendor, 
and soldiers, . and students from the University, easily 
recognized by their jaunty caps and careless manners. 

Most interesting of all are the army officers who are 



10 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

seen on every street, striding along with sabers clanking 
at their heels and making a bright bit of color with 
their scarlet trimmed uniforms. We hear military 
music and looking down a side street have a glimpse 
of a body of cavalry dashing across it. Berlin is the 
chief military city of Europe. 

PENSION LIFE 

On a broad avenue lined by tall houses with hand- 
some fronts decorated by rich carvings, balconies 
full of blooming plants, and statuary set in niches — 
on this avenue is our boarding house or pension. It 
is in a tall apartment house, each floor of which forms 
a dwelling for a separate family. We enter a marble- 
paved vestibule from the street and ascend an elegant 
staircase with landings here and there provided with 
seats, ornamented by bronze statuary, and lighted 
by stained-glass windows. Open windows look upon 
an inner grass-grown court where a fountain plays. 
Our pension is on the fourth floor — a weary climb. 
We sigh for an elevator, but elevators are not com- 
mon in Berlin. 

A pleasant German landlady makes us welcome, 
and gives us front rooms looking upon a pretty little 
platz. We peer about our quarters curiously — neat 
but stiff-looking little rooms, with the furniture in 
each ranged solemnly around the walls. The first 
room is papered in dark chocolate color, the floor is 
painted and partly covered with rugs. 

The windows are draped with lace curtains. All 
of the windows are double, and open on hinges like 
doors, the inner ones opening into the room; the outer 
ones upon the street. Standing primly around the 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



11 



room, in order, are an old-fashioned chest of drawers, 
a clumsy wardrobe with great pegs inside on which 
our clothing will not hang, a square table standing 
squarely in the center of a rug, a quaint old wash- 
stand, a stove and a bed. 




THE EMPEROR OP GERMANY — KAISER WILHELM II. 



The stove is built into the wall, reaches almost to 

the ceiling, and is covered with light blue porcelain 

tiles. It is as cheerful to look upon as a tombstone, 

with not a spark of fire to be seen, although it is warm 

-to the touch. This is a June day, but cold, for Berlin 



12 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

is as far north as liabrador, though its chmate is con- 
siderably milder than that of Labrador. 

We ring for more heat, and are told that the stove 
is supplied with fuel but once a day. Each morning 
the maid puts a little panful of blocks of pressed coal 
into this porcelain monument, waits till it is ablaze, 
then shuts the stove door, leaving the fire to itself until 
the next morning. This German fire warms the room 
mildly for twenty-four hours. In winter only a Ger- 
man could live in such slightly heated rooms. 

The most remarkable article in each room is the 
bed. German beds are always single, short, narrow, 
and made for anything but comfort. A: tall person 
lying in one must coil himself up like a wire spring 
and remain quite still if he wishes to keep from 
falling out. There is no sheet, no felanket, no 
counterpane. The only covering is a feather bed, 
concealed by da.y with a chintz spread. The feather 
bed lies upon a mattress which is enclosed in a cotton 
case like a pillow slip. We lie awake much of the 
time, learning how to balance ourselves on our mat- 
tresses and, keep the feather beds on top of us. 

We have five meals a day. At eight o'clock in 
the morning we have a cup of coffee and two crisp 
rolls, served usually- in our rooms. A second breakfast 
at eleven o'clock consists of a cup of beef tea or of 
chocolate, or it may be a sandwich alone is served. 
Dinner is ready in the dining-room at two o'clock. 
We have soup which is like nothing ever made in 
any other country. Sometimes it is chocolate soup 
covered with whipped cream, or apple soup, or cherry 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 13 



or plum, or a vegetable soup — thick with onions, 
cabbage and carrots. "^ 

For the second course we have chicken, ham, or sev- 
eral kinds of sausage. Good fresh meat is not so cheap 
here as in America. With the meat come potatoes, 
cabbage, and Other vegetables. The bread is dark, 
and has caraway seeds in it. Puddings made of curious f 
mixtures are the usual dessert. Coffee is served, and 
beer also, for the German people are very fond of 
beer. At five o'clock toast, boiled eggs, tea, and 
perhaps fruit, form the fourth meal. Little cakes 
are added on special occasions. 

Supper is at nine or even ten o'clock, when all are 
home from opera, concert, lessons, and sight seeing. 
We have a hearty meal of sausage, ham, bread and 
butter, preserved fruits, cheese, tea and beer. 

Our fellow boarders are foreigners like ourselves, 
in Berlin to study music. at the Conservatory, or to 
attend lectures at tha University, or to study 
German. As all of us wish to learn the language, 
we speak only German at meal times. Often we 
m§,ke funny blunders, but our German friends never 
laugh at our mistakes, being too thoughtful of our 
feelings to ridicule us. 

The Germans are careful to observe little courtesies. 
On appearing at the table one is expected to bow to 
each person present, beginning with the hostess. On 
leaving, the bowing is all repeated. If one wishes to 
be very cordial, he shakes hands all around upon rising 
from the table, saying to each one in German, "May 
the meal be blessed." 

It is easv to know all about our fellow boarders in 



14 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



Germany. As soon as a traveler arrives in any town 
the police call upon him, to learn his name, birthplace, 
date of birth, last dwelling-place, and occupation. 
These items are kept among the official records where 
anyone may read them. If one stays long in a place, 
he must tell the amount of his income and pay part 
of it to the government as a tax. Every time one 
moves, if only to a different pension, he is registered 
again by the police. These German police have a 
great deal of authority, so that almost the very 
dogs and cats are afraid of being arrested by them. 







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BRANDENBURG GATE 



THE CHIEF SIGHTS OF BERLIN 

Berlin is the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia 
as well as of the German Empire. It stands on a 
plain, beautiful with fields and gardens. The city 
is divided by the river Spree and numerous canals 
which connect branches of the stream. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 15 

The town sprang from a little settlement on an 
island in the Spree, eight hundred years ago. Fred- 
erick the Great, one of the kings of Prussia, spent 
much money in beautifying his capital. Berlin 
is a city of palaces. We find no ruins here. The 
balconies of the houses are full of flowers; the fronts 
of some of the residences look like flower gardens — 
hanging gardens from the ground to the roof. 

The city's buildings and statuary tell the history 
of Prussia — a history of warfare; for Prussia is a 
nation of warriors. We hire a droshky at one mark 
an hour, and drive to see one of Berlin's greatest 
war memorials, the Brandenburg Gate. (A mark 
is worth about twenty-five cents.) 

The famous Brandenburg Gate is a triumphal 
arch built like a Greek portico with six huge fluted 
columns forming five separate passageways. It stands 
at the western end of Unter den Linden, the finest 
boulevard in Berlin, and gives entrance to the park 
called the Thiergarten. The Gate is seventy feet 
high and two hundred feet wide. 

All foot passengers and carriages may pass through 
the side arches, but the central one is reserved for 
the royal family alone. An armed soldier guards 
this royal passageway, to warn off common folk 
should they attempt to use it. 

On top of the Gate is the bronze statue of Vic- 
tory, represented as a goddess, seated in a car and 
driving four spirited horses. This fine group is a war 
trophy. In 1807 Napoleon Bonaparte, the French gen- 
eral, captured Berlin and carried away this Victory to 
Paris, to adorn his own capital. But in 1814 the 



16 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



statue was brought back to Berlin by the Prussian 
general, Blucher, and set facing the Unter den Lin- 
den. And there is not a school-boy in Berlin but 
can tell us proudly how ''old Blucher" brought it 
home. 

Passing through the gate, we enter the Thiergarten, 
and see at once another memorial of warfare — 
the tall Victory monument, which stands at the end 
of several fine avenues coming to a center in this part 




VICTORY COLUMN 



of the park. The Victory monument measures from 
base to top one hundred and ninety-eight feet. It 
was first intended as a memorial of the war with Den- 
mark, in which Germany took the province of Schles- 
wig and Holstein from the Danes. 

Then Prussia won in a war with Austria, and it 
was decided to honor this victory also. Finally 
came the victories over the French in 1870-71, and 
the formation of the German Empire. So the Vic- 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 17 

tory monument was designed to commemorate these 
three wars. It was completed in 1873. The monu- 
ment has a sculptured pedestal, above which is an 
open colonnade or Hall of Victory. Above the 
colonnade is reared the shaft, and on its summit 
is a figure of Victory. 

The pedestal alone would give one several lessons in 
German history. On one side are carved illustrations 
of the chief events in the Danish war; on another 
is shown a scene in the Austrian campaign; on the 
third and fourth are shown the surrender of the 
French in 1871 after the great battle of Sedan, which 
closed the Franco-Prussian War; the triumphal entry 
of the German soldiers into Paris; and the return 
to Berlin of the newly-crowned Emperor William I. 
and his victorious troops. In these sculptured pic- 
tures are seen the faces of Bismarck, the great Prus- 
sian statesman, and of Von Moltke, the equally 
great Prussian general. 

Within the open colonnade is a mosaic showing 
other war scenes. The shaft is a fluted sandstone 
column having three rows of cannon fitted into its 
grooves and bound to the shaft by sculptured laurel 
wreaths. These are the cannon captured from the 
Danes, the Austrians and the French. The figure 
of Victory on top of this shaft is forty-two feet high. 

Turning from this fine monument, we drive up 
and down the avenues of the Thiergarten, leaving 
the droshky at times, to wander about beneath the 
trees. The Thiergarten is a beautiful park of six: 
hundred acres. It is surrounded by an elegant resi- 



18 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

dence district which extends for several miles west- 
ward. ■ 

We ride along shaded avenues, past dripping foun- 
tains, bridges which are works of art, flower plots, 
marble statuary and grassy stretches where children 
are at play. Whole families are here, spending the 
day in the open air. A tramway crosses the park, 
its cars always full of pleasure seekers. Even in 
winter the Thiergarten is thronged, for then the 
skating draws the meny makers. 

About ninety acres of the Thiergarten are given 
up to a zoological garden, which has the largest and 
best collection of animals found in the world. This 
part of the park is a favorite resort for the children, 
who romp here from early morning until dark. A 
troop of nurse maids in caps and aprons are pushing 
their baby carriages over the walks, while women 
busy with knitting and fancywork sit on the benches 
and chat. Orchestras play, officers in spick and span 
uniforms stride past, a group of university students 
are smoking and singing songs under a great oak 
tree, and the monkeys in their glass houses are making 
faces at a group of tourists who are gathered before 
their perches. 

A little stream which sparkles through the park 
is dotted with small islands. On one island is a fine 
statue of Queen Louisa of Prussia, great-grandmother 
of the present Emperor Wilham II. This lovely 
young queen was as good as she was beautiful, and 
the German people idolize her memory. She was 
driven from her palace when Napoleon took Berlin 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 19 

in 1807, and with her husband, King Frederick WiUiam 
III., endured great hardships while in exile. 

This monument was erected to welcome her on her 
return to Berlin. Many of us have seen copies of 
the portrait of Queen Louisa which represents her 
descending the palace staircase. 

Other statues in the park are famed as works of art. 
One of white marble is of Goethe, the greatest German 
poet; and another celebrated bit of sculpture is the 
lion group. 

The finest boulevard in Berlin is Unter den Linden. 
The name means "under the linden trees." It 
stretches eastward from the Brandenburg Gate for 
a mile and is adorned with rows of oak trees, chestnuts, 
beeches and lindens — the linden trees giving the name. 
A grassy strip under the trees has seats arranged 
along its entire length, and here one may rest and 
look at the palaces, statuary, gardens, and cafes on 
either side, and at the multitude moving up and 
down the many drives, promenades and carriage- 
ways of this broad street. 

There is a paved roadway for heavy vehicles, then 
a row of trees, a smooth carriage-drive, another row 
of trees, a soft riding-path for equestrians only, and 
a broad promenade for pedestrians, bordered by more 
trees — all this forming but half the avenue; the same 
series is repeated on the other side of the central 
promenade. The throng of people is divided into 
two streams, one moving toward the park, the other 
from it. At night thousands of electric lights make 
the avenue brilliant. 

Winter is the best time to see the Linden, for then 



20 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



Berlin is gayest. The royal family has returned 
from its summer palaces; the German parliament is in 
session; and fashionable folk from all over the em- 
pire have come to participate in the winter round of 
parties, balls, operas and court festivities. 

The Paris Platz just east of the Brandenburg Gate 
is at this end of the Linden. It is bordered by palaces, 
the house numbered 2 being that of Prince Bliicher, 
the general. All of these palaces have gardens in front 
where flowers bloom and rose-hedges fill the air with 





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HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, BERLIN 



perfumes. Palaces and gardens are all about us. And 
as we move eastward along the Linden, handsome 
residences, public buildings, hotels and shops are 
seen on both sides. 

At every turn we meet rubber-tired carriages, 
ladies and gentlemen on horseback, thousands of 
shoppers, sightseers, idlers and soldiers, and even 
a detachment of troops marching gaily down the 
avenue with colors flying and band playing. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 21 

Where busy streets cross Unter den Linden, mounted 
police are on duty to prevent a blockade. Droshky 
drivers hiss a warning to careless pedestrians and drive 
ahead without further notice. If one gets run over 
in Berlin, he may be arrested for blockading the 
street. We cross in safety and loiter along, looking into 
the shop windows. And what splendid shop windows ! 
Here are beautiful specimens of filagree jewelry, por- 
celain, brassware and artistic furniture. These are 
all made in Berlin, which is a great manufacturing 
center. 

The Berlin porcelain manufactory was founded by 
Frederick the Great. There are factories, besides, for 
making pianos, scientific instruments, machinery, 
locomotives, carpets, gold and silver goods and 
electro-plate. Factories with tall smoke-stacks crowd 
the outskirts of the city, employing thousands of 
workmen. 

A large space at the eastern end of Unter den 
Linden is the most interesting part of Berlin. It 
is surrounded by palaces, the University, the Arsenal, 
the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and beyond these 
the Schloss Bridge, the Lustgarten, Museum, and 
Old Schloss. We pass the palace of Emperor William 
I., a plain, substantial dwelling, and cross to an open 
space in front of it, where stands the statue of Fred- 
erick the Great, the finest bronze monument in the 
world. 

Frederick the Great lived in the time of George 
Washington. He was Prussia's greatest king and 
one of the greatest generals of the modern world. 
In 1740 his reign began, when he was twenty-eight 



22 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

years old, and from then until his death in 1786 
Prussia prospered as under no other ruler. He was 
a warrior king and won in repeated battles with 
Austria, France, and any nation which crossed his 
path. After the Seven Years' War he annexed much 
territory to his kingdom, and began to establish 
manufactories, open excellent schools, build palaces, 
bridges and roads, and improve the farm lands. 

He was a man of fine taste in music, art and lit- 
lerature, and wrote books — thirty volumes in all — 
though so busy with other duties that one wonders 
when he found time to use his pen. We shall visit 
his palaces in Potsdam later on and learn more of 
his life. Let us turn now to his statue in Unter den 
Linden. 

The granite pedestal, twenty-five feet high, has 
its sides covered with carved figures of the most 
distinguished generals who served in war under 
Frederick the Great. These figures are life-size. 
Bronze statues of his four greatest generals stand 
at the corners of the pedestal. Above this fine stone 
base rises the statue of "Old Fritz" on horseback. 
The Germans love to call their famous king '^Old 
Fritz." 

This equestrian statue is se^-enteen and a half feet 
high. The king wears a sweeping military cloak 
and cocked hat, just as his people were wont to see 
him dressed; he looks down upon the avenue throng 
with the shrewd gaze which he always bent upon 
his fellow-men. The general appearance of the monu- 
ment is that of groups of bronze people, horses, can- 
non, armor, trumpets and other war supplies — all 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 23 

massed beneath the splendid central figure, Old Fritz 
on his horse. 

Across the street is the University building. This 
University is one of the best in a country famous 
for universities of high rank, such as those of Halle, 
Bonn, Heidelberg, Jena, Gottingen, Leipsic, Freiburg 
and Strasburg. Many of the professors in the Uni- 
versity of Berlin have been men of world-wide fame. 

Here, in the grass-grown court around three sides 
of which the building is erected, stand statues of the 
Humboldt brothers. Alexander von Humboldt, a 
professor in this University, was a famous naturalist. 
He traveled widely and discovered much of the in- 
formation about climate, land forms, animal and 
vegetable life, weather conditions, and the like, 
which we now learn from our geographies. He 
was buried in Berlin, and his grave is visited by hun- 
dreds of travelers each year. 

Among other celebrated professors here were the 
Grimm brothers, Jacob and William, who were stu- 
dents of language. Jacob Grimm compiled a Ger- 
man dictionary, a great work, but of less interest 
to us than the folk-tales which he and William 
collected and published in 1812 and 1815. We 
still read Grimm's Fairy Tales. The brothers gath- 
ered these folk-stories partly from the people and 
partly from books. 

We have heard, too, of Professor Koch, who still 
lives, and who, in 1882, discovered the germ (or 
bacillus) from which consumption arises — a discovery 
which has led to the saving of many lives. Ger- 
mans lead in the discovery of scientific facts. 



24 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



Students from all parts of the world flock to Ger- 
many, and especially to Berlin, to study under its 
celebrated professors. We meet many American stu- 
dents in Berlin, some of them women, for of late 
years women have been admitted to the lectures 
in the German universities. Berlin University has 




OLD EMPEROR WILLIAM'S PALACE, BERLIN 

about five thousand students in all. Adjoining the 
University is the Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Near by is the Arsenal, a massive building richly 
decorated with carvings and sculptures. The key- 
stones of the windows are carved blocks representing 
the heads of dying warriors. We enter and examine 
the large collection of armor, weapons, cannon, tro- 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 25 

phies taken in battle, models of fortresses, plans of 
battles, and specimens of every kind of ordnance 
from those used in early ages down to the famous 
Krupp guns of to-day. 

In the Hall of Fame in this building we look upon 
an assembty of bronze and marble statues of war 
heroes and kings, while the walls are covered with 
great frescoes showing "The Proclamation of the 
German Emperor at Versailles," "The French Sur- 
render at Sedan," and the picture of the celebrated 
regiment of giants, formed by the father of Frederick 
the Great, a tyrannical old king who forced every tall 
man in Prussia into the ranks of this peculiar regiment. 
When the Prussian giants 'gave out, he sent agents 
to other countries, to bribe tall men to enlist. An 
Irishman over seven feet tall was paid six thousand 
dollars to join the Giant Grenadiers. " 

The Royal Guard House, close at hand, is a low, 
square building, a copy of a Roman fortified gate. 
A company of soldiers is stationed here, a squad always 
being lined up to salute passing officers or members 
of the royal household. As these are constantly 
passing, the sentries' hands are forever rising to their 
caps in salute. At noon a military band plays stirring 
music here for an hour. Soldiers, officers, military 
bands, cavalry regiments, statues of generals, memo- 
rials of battle victories — already we have seen all 
these in Berlin. 

Why is the German Empire a nation of warriors? 
There is a need. Germany is a rich country, but it has 
no natural defences, no sea nor mountain barriers 
dividing it from its neighbors. A great army and 



26 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

lines of fortresses are necessary to protect it from 
envious enemies. 

All about these buildings are- open .spaces where 
flowers grow, where carriages roll to and fro, and 
court liveries and army uniforms brighten the scene 
with gold lace, scarlet, and glittering helmets. 

Here is the stately Schloss Bridge over the Spree. 
It is decorated with eight marble groups representing 
the different stages in a warrior's life. Another 
bridge not far away has an equestrian statue of the 
Great Elector, a Prussia ruler. An equestrian statue 
is a statue of some one on horseback. Some people 
say that on New Year's Eve this figure of the Great 
Elector springs from his bronze horse and goes about 
the streets of Berlin punishing evil-doers. 

Crossing the Schloss Bridge, we walk through the 
Lustgarten, a lovely park with flowers, trees, and a 
fountain in the center. Nightingales sing in these 
Berlin parks in the springtime — music sweeter than 
the orchestra concerts which often take place here. 
The Lustgarten is bounded on the south by the royal 
palace known as the Old Schloss; on the north by the 
Museum; and on the east by the Cathedral or Dom. 
The Old Schloss is the home of Emperor William II. 
and his family during the winter months. A purple 
standard always flies from one of the Schloss towers 
to show the presence of the Kaiser, as the Emperor is 
called in Germany. 

William 11. (or Wilhelm II.) is a grandson of Queen 
Victoria, his mother being the eldest daughter of the 
English Queen. We have heard much of him recently, 
during the visit of his brother. Prince Henry, to the 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



27 



United States^ when the daughter of our President 
christened the Emperor's yacht. The most friendly 
feelings exist between the United States and Ger- 
many, this being due in a large measure to the influ- 
ence of Wilhelm II. 

One side of the Old Schloss faces the river, throwing 
a reflection of its quaint old towers and battlements 
in the water. It is three stories high, six hundred 
and forty feet long, and three hundred and seventy- 




EMPEROR S PALACE AT BERLIN 



six feet wide, It was begun four hundred and sixty 
years ago as a fortress, by the Great Elector Each 
succeeding king has added portions to the palace, until 
it now contains seven hundred rooms. 

A guide in court livery takes us for a tour through 
the part usually shown to visitors. We ascend to the 
second story by a broad inclined passageway which 
would make a good toboggan slide,. Kings and cour- 
tiers of early times used to ride upstairs on horseback 



28 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

or in carriages. There is now a splendid staircase 
adorned with statues, fountains and frescoes, but we 
prefer the ancient passage. 

The guide brings us a bundle of felt slippers of 
huge size, bidding us don them over our shoes. This 
is to protect the brilliantly polished floors from scratch- 
ing, but it is far from easy to go sliding over what 
seems square miles of waxed floors in shoes as large 
as small boats. 

Steering carefully, we make our way through one 
magnificent apartment after another, until our eyes 
grow weary of jewels, and gilding, and richly colored 
tapestries, and costly furniture, and inlaid work, and 
mosaics, and rare bric-a-brac. Floors, walls, and 
ceilings glitter with polished wood, gilding, frescoes, 
gems, marbles, bronzes, and every manner of costly 
adornment. 

The picture gallery, two hundred feet long, is 
sometimes used for court banquets. The walls are 
covered with pictures by modern artists. One paint- 
ing is well known to us from the many copies seen 
at home — a representation of "Napoleon Crossing 
the Alps," by the French artist, David. Bliicher, 
who brought back from Paris the bronze Victory 
belonging to the Brandenburg Gate, brought this 
picture of Napoleon also, taking it from the Paris 
gallery as a further punishment to the French for 
stealing Berlin's art treasures. 

The Throne Room is gorgeous with ornaments 
and the costly relics of former kings. A gilded 
canopy above a wall space covered with velvet over- 
hangs the chairs of the emperor and empress. Op- 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 29 

posite this is the most splendid sideboard ever made. 
It rises to the ceihng — a mass of gold and silver 
carved in elaborate forms — and is laden with gold and 
silver plate. 

Standing on the floor in front of it is a beer mug 
as tall as a man. The beer mug seems a strange, 
object to be thus honored, but it is of no small im-f 
portance in the empire. In Berlin alone about 
ninety million gallons of beer are drunk each year. 

From the ceiling of the Throne Room hangs a 
rock-crystal chandelier with a history. Several hun- 
dred years ago it hung in the Hall of Conclave in 
the city of Worms, and beneath it stood Martin 
Luther, a monk and the founder of the Protestant 
Church, while being tried before the emperor's court 
for his religious belief We shall learn more of Luther 
as we travel through the towns where he lived and 
worked. This man is revered by Protestant Ger- 
mans as one of the world's greatest of great men. 

The White Hall is the largest and finest room in 
the Old Schloss. It is more than one hundred feet 
long, and contains numbers of statues of celebrated 
rulers and artists, also paintings, frescoes, and carv- 
ings of exquisite workmanship. Here court balls 
are given, and here the emperor meets the German 
Parliament once a year to address it at its. opening 
session. At night, when for some festival the three 
thousand wax candles light up this White Hall, 
the scene is said to be dazzling enough to blind the 
eyes. 

We are shown the Chapel, and the rooms inhabited 
by Frederick the Great, but are tired of splendors 



30 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GER]\I>.^;^ 

and glad to rest for a time in the park^ discarding 
our felt slippers with relief. 

The Museum, facing the Old Schloas froin the other 
side of the I^ustgarten, is in two buildings, the Old 
Museum, and the New Museum in its rear. The 
two are connected by a colonnade. 

The Old Museum covers forty-seven thousand 
square feet of ground, and is considered the most 
beautiful building in Berlin. In front of its entrance 
is a great basin cut from a single granite boulder. 
This forms an impressive part of the approach to 
the building. We mount the broad, easy steps and 
pause to look at the two bronze groups, one on either 
side of the steps, which have been admired and writ- 
ten about by every visitor of taste who has looked 
upon them. One is ^'The Lion Killer"; the other 
''The Amazon." The first represents a rider hurling 
his spear at a lion which bars his way. The second 
shows a stalwart woman — an Amazon — in the act 
of defending herself from a panther which has leaped 
upon her horse's neck. 

We pass through a portico enclosed by eighteen 
huge columns, where frescoes on the walls portray 
incidents in the progress of the world, and where are 
statues of sculptors and artists. Great bronze doors, 
richly carved, lead within. These doors weigh sev- 
eral tons and cost thousands of dollars. 

The ground floor contains pottery, mosaics, bronzes, 
cameos, engraved stones, ancient medals, and about 
two thousand vases. Above this is the Gallery of 
Sculptures, a rotunda or circular hall filled with 
antique statues, some of them of great value. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 31 

One bronze figure, "The Praying Boy/' is supposed 
to have been made about four hundred years before 
Christ. It was found buried in the bed of the river 
Tiber in Italy. Frederick the Great bought it for 
ten thousand dollars, and placed it here. 

The Picture Gallery on the upper floor contains 
paintings by nearly all the Old Masters, Italian, French, 
Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, and German. The pictures 
are hung in groups arranged according to the time 
and country in which they were painted. This makes 
the collection valuable to those who wish to study 
the history of art. 

We see the "Ecstasy of Saint Anthony" by Murillo, 
hte Spanish artist; Titian's portrait of his daughter; 
Correggio's" Jupiter and lo," and his "Head of Christ 
on a Handkerchief." 

The New Museum, like the Old, has three floors 
devoted (in turn) to antique relics, to sculpture, and 
to paintings. We ascend a grand marble staircase, 
which rises the full height of the building, whence 
we may look down upon the noble hall of sculptures 
or examine the walls of the staircase, where are painted 
the famous frescoes by Kaulbach, a German artist. 
The frescoes depict events in the history of the human 
race. 

The scenes belonging .to different centuries are 
grouped separately. The group of the sixteenth 
century is a noble one. Here are Queen Elizabeth 
of England, Shakespeare, Raleigh, Angelo, Raphael, 
Dante, Cervantes, Columbus, Galileo, and others. 
The central figure is Martin Luther, who stands holding 
high above his head the open Bible, from which fight 



32 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



streams over all. Kaulbach spent nineteen years in 
painting these rare frescoes. 

The National Picture Gallery, near the museum, 
contains the works of modern German artists. After 
viewing its collection and the Dom, or Cathedral 




THE EMPRESS OF GERMANY — KAISERIN AUGUSTA VICTORIA 



(which dates from 1750), we recross the Schloss 
Bridge to the Royal Library, which stands in the 
Opera Platz. This library contains over one million 
volumes and about sixteen thousand manuscripts. 

We are shown Martin Luther's manuscript trans- 
lation of the Bible — its first translation into a modern 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 33 

language. tJntil Luther's- time only learned folk 
could read the Bible. Here, too, is Gutenberg's 
Bible, the first book printed on movable types. Gut- 
enberg invented printing with types in 1443. There 
seems no end to the treasures of this library, where 
students from the neighboring University come and 
go, and scholars sit poring over books at the long 
tables. 

The Royal Opera House was built one hundred and 
fifty odd years ago by Frederick the Great. It seats 
almost two thousand people. One hears the best 
music • of a music-loving people within its walls. 
The government believes that music and plays of 
the highest order are part of the people's educa- 
tion. So it aids the opera houses and theaters, 
keeping the prices of admission low. The army 
officers in Prussia are obliged to attend good plays, 
operas and concerts each month, for the purpose of 
improving their taste and of gaining refinement and 
culture. 

For a good seat at the opera we pay seventy-five 
cents; at home such a seat would cost us two dollars 
or more. The performance begins at seven o'clock — in 
winter at half after six — and is over by ten o'clock, 
in time for the hearty German supper. People attend 
in ordinary street costumes, except on Sunday nights, 
when fine toilettes appear. Hats and wraps are 
always removed in a cloak room. 

No whispering, laughing, or rustling of programmes 
occurs while music is being rendered. The Germans 
appreciate music too highly thus to disturb its per- 
formance. We attend one of the famous Philhar- 



34 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

monic concerts in Berlin and notice the silent, close 
attention of the audience. Celebrated orchestras, 
violinists, and pianists may be heard at the Philhar- 
monic concerts for from ten to twenty cents. 

We enjoy a play at the Royal Theater, a fine building 
in the Schiller Platz. In front of the building is a 
statue of Schiller, the German dramatist. His drama 
of "William Tell" gives the story of that Swiss hero, 
and is still played on the stage by leading actors. 

A pleasant evening may be passed in one of the 
many concert gardens, Vienna cafes, or concert halls 
found all over Berlin. Some are restaurants, full 
of hungry people, where orchestras give excellent 
music. The concert gardens are especially attractive. 
Under avenues of fine trees and within leafy arbors 
are tables surrounded by merry feasters. Electric 
lights in colored globes gleam by hundreds among 
the trees and gay music issues from some pavilion. 

Whole families eat their supper in these open-air 
restaurants amid a merry clatter of cups and plates 
and a constant pounding of beer mugs. At the con- 
cert halls there is nearly always a restaurant attached 
where the audience may go, between scenes, to have 
a lunch or a stein (mug) of beer. Or tables may stand 
in the audience room itself, the families gathering 
about them, the women knitting lace, and the men 
smoking. 

Eating seems the main business of half Berlin. 
In the basement of the City Hall is a really grand 
restaurant, called the Rathskeller, which is one hun- 
dred feet long. For working people there are cheap 
resorts known as the People's Kitchens, where a 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 35 

plate of soup costs half a cent; a roll of bread, a 
fourth of a cent; while whole meals of cabbage, strong- 
smelling cheese, and beer are but five cents. 

There are hundreds of "delicatessen shops" where 
dainties ready for the table are sold — puddings and 
cakes and other goodies, some baked in little por- 
celain jars pretty enough to make anything taste 
good. 

We step into an ' 'automatic restaurant," where 
no waiters appear. Long counters have upon shelves 
above them a display of eatables with the price of 
each dish marked on a card himg over it. We drop 
a coin into a slot machine, and a plate rises before 
us on the counter in some mysterious way. Other 
coins dropped into other slots produce bread, meat 
and vegetables. Still another coin opens a faucet 
which fills our coffee cup. The faucet moves by 
clockwork and will give but one cupful at a time. 

We visit a meat market by mistake, thinking 
from its splendor that it must be a museum. It 
is in a huge iron and glass building, and has frescoed 
walls and marble tables and mosaic fioors and potted 
plants, while the rosy-cheeked German girls who 
sell us a roast goose are as neat as can be. They 
wear the stiffest and whitest of caps and aprons, 
and do up our purchases in the tidiest of packages. 

What displays there are of cooked meats, of sau- 
sages by the yard, and of hams — famous Westpha- 
lian hams from the little German state of Westphalia i 
Geese dangle their long necks from the racks like 
rows of fringe, for goose is a favorite dish with the 
Germans. There is everything one could wish for 



36 - A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

in the meat line, except good American beefsteak. 

We pass a baker's and see a serving-maid entering 
with a tray of unbaked bread and pudding. Ger- 
man housewives send their pastry to the bakers' 
ovens, as their kitchen stoves have ovens too small 
for baking. 

We loiter up and down the streets, idly watching 
the people — Friedrich Strasse (or street), the longest 
in the city; and Leipsiger Strasse, crowded with 
great wholesale houses; and Wilhelm Strasse, the 
most fashionable street in Berlin. No. 77 Wilhelm 
Strasse was the home of Bismarck, a former Chan- 
cellor (or Prime Minister) of Germany. 

Bismarck was called the Iron Chancellor because 
of his strong will. To his efforts was chiefly due the 
union of the German states into a great empire, with 
Prussia — his beloved "fatherland" — at its head. We 
are taken through the home of this famous old states- 
man, and are pleased to see in his study a picture of 
our own General Grant, whom Bismarck knew and 
admired. 

One sight, common on these Berlin streets, sur- 
prises us — the toiling, overburdened women. Women 
shovel coal, peddle milk, load bricks, carry hods of 
mortar, clean streets, and act as porters from railway 
stations. All through Germany women are the most 
overburdened class of laborers. 

Men walk the streets, hands free and pipes in 
mouths, leaving their wives, mothers, or sisters to 
carry the parcels, push the baby carriage, or stagger 
under great market baskets without help. Our Amer- 
ican boys find it far from comfortable to have a 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 37 

woman carry their heavy luggage from the trains 
while they follow at their ease. 

We notice many orderly arrangements in Berlin 
which make life pleasanter. Here is an ambulance 
lodge, where people injured on the street may be cared 
for. These lodges are found at street corners, being 
easily discovered by their signs — a red cross painted 
on a white ground. They are fitted up with every 
convenience for treating cases of accidents. 

In Berlin advertisements do not disfigure buildings 
and walls. Little towers are erected on street corners 
to serve as bill boards. On them are pasted directories 
of important places in the city, announcements of 
theaters and concerts, and other information for the 
public. 

The delivery of letters in Berlin is managed by 
the Rohrpost — meaning the wind post. A system of 
tubes forms a network all over the city. Through 
these tubes letters and postal cards are shot at a great 
speed by means of the pressure of the air. The tubes 
deliver mail to the various postoflice stations, whence 
postmen deliver it to the different houses. 

Berlin's whole postoflice system is a model for 
all the world. In Leipsiger Strasse is the Royal 
Post Museum, where one may learn how mails have 
been delivered in every part of the world, from the 
earliest times. We see here figures of every kind of 
mail carrier, from carrier pigeons, arrows, Egyptian 
chariots, horseback riders, reindeer sleds, elephants 
and camels, up to models of swift North German 
Lloyd mail steamships and New York Central R. R. 
mail trains. The museum was founded by Dr. 



c8 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



Stephan, a Berlin gentleman who invented the postal 
card. 

We go to the cemeteries to look upon the graves 
of illustrious artists, scientists, and musicians. Most 
graves are marked by iron crosses painted black, but 
here is one with a tombstone. A score of music and 
a verse are cut on the stone. This is the grave of 
Mendelssohn, the composer, whose home was in Berlin. 
We lay a wreath upon the grave, among the flowers 




NEW CHURCH, BURG STREET, BERLIN. 



left there by the many music students in Berlin who 
make pilgrimages to this spot. 

Berlin has not many churches. As a rule the people 
belong to the Lutheran or to the Reformed Churches. 
Nearly two-thirds of the entire population of Ger- 
man}^ are Protestants. About half a million people 
are Jews. The rest are largely Roman Catholics. 
South Germany is almost wholly Roman Catholic. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 39 

The Emperor William I. Memorial Church of Berlin 
is said to be the finest Protestant church in Germany. 
The Berlin Jewish s3magogue is a splendid temple 
which seats five thousand people. It cost one and 
a half million dollars. 

CHILD-LIFE IN GERMANY 

The Germans are very friendly and cordial in their 
manner, and we enjoy greatly our visits with them, 
and the glimpses we obtain of their home life. They 
are quite curious about us and our homes and country 
and everything we do. They know little about Amer- 
ica, and we are glad to answer their questions when 
we can. 

In the apartment across the hall from our pension 
is a family that interests us much. There are boys 
of all ages and sizes, ever so many of them, and only 
one girl. The father is very fond and proud of his 
boys, but fears that when they grow up there will 
not be room or bread enough for all. Some of them 
must go to America. 

The baby of this household is a quaint and most 
interesting little fellow. He is dressed in long clothes 
which are folded over at the end, outside of which 
a bandage is tightly bound, enclosing the arms and 
whole body. 

Ribbons are wound around the child in different 
places and tied in bows in front. Nothing of the 
baby is visible but the face, for the head is covered 
by a cap. He can neither move nor kick — only eat, 
sleep and grow fat. German babies are almost 
always swaddled in this way. Why? For safety. 



40 A LITTLE JOUKNEY TO GERMANY 

the mother tells us. If he falls, his little limbs are 
in no danger of being broken; he cannot scratch 
his face with his nails. Then, too, he maybe placed 
on a chair or table or bench, like a package of goods, 
and need not be constantly watched. 

The baby's four-year-old brother goes to kinder- 
garten. There he is taught to say his prayers and 
the alphabet, to sing, repeat short poems, dress dolls, 
build with blocks, paint, draw, cut out, mould and 
model. 

While very young he and his brothers learn about 
fairies and witches, wizards, giants and dwarfs. 
And they believe in them all. They can tell us 
more fables and folk-stories than any little boys in 
America. Germany is a land of story as well as of 
song. 

The seven-year-old brother has just had a birthday, 
and with great pride exhibits the gifts received — a 
satchel for his books, with his name on the cover 
in large brass letters, a book, slate, pencils, a sponge 
box. All these tell us his school days are at hand. 
Had he been a strong little lad he would have started 
to school at six years of age. 

The members of this household rise early, for the 
older children must be in school by seven o'clock 
in the morning — long before daylight in this northern 
land. It makes us shiver to think of it. 

What a rush there is to be ready in time! The 
breakfast of coffee and rolls is eaten by candlelight, 
hurriedly and often while standing. The coffeepot 
and bread are placed upon the table by the maid, 
and each comer serves himself excepting the father, 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



41 



who is waited upon by the mother or daughter. Little 
boxes or baskets of hmcheon are prepared for the 
children to take to school and eat at recess time. 
The boys carry their books and sometimes their 
dinners in a knapsack strapped upon their shoulders. 




LITTLE BROTHER 



They do not loiter by the wayside, you may be sure, 
for tardiness would be severely punished. These 
boys know little of cricket or baseball or football, 
for they have few opportunities for play. There 
is not much time left after study hours for games. 



^^IH 



42 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

Long walks and gymnastics in school give them 
exercise. The principal outdoor amusements are sol- 
diering in summer, and skating and sleighing in 
winter. The long winters give them all the coasting 
and tobogganing they want. 

If a school day prove very warm the pupils are 
allowed a half-holiday. These are usually spent in 
making e:5^cursions to some point of interest — a palace 
or fort or wood or river. 

One day we received an invitation to spend the 
day with our neighbors across the way. The daughter 
was to have a birthday — and a birthday in a German 
family is a most important occasion. It is a day 
of pleasure for all. 

The boys' sister, Elsa, is a fair-faced, blue-eyed girl, 
with smooth, shining yellow hair and round rosy 
cheeks. She dresses very plainly and is shy and quiet 
and sedate. She knows how to knit and sew and darn 
and cook, and do all kinds of housework. She waits 
on her father and brothers almost as a servant would 
be expected to in our own country. And her mother 
does likewise. The father often has his meals first; 
the mother waits on him and eats afterward with Elsa 
and the boys. 

Elsa is not petted or waited upon or made much of 
by her father and brothers, as a United States girl 
would be. The men and boys are always considered 
first in Germany. Girls are not thought so much of. 
This seems strange to us. 

As soon as Elsa's schoolroom days are over her 
mother will place her in another household for a year, 
to learn lessons in housekeeping. A daughter of some 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



43 



friend, relative or neighbor will take Elsa's place and 
learn from Elsa's mother what Elsa is learning in 
another home. The girls are thought to perform their 
duties more cheerfully and thoroughly in the homes 
of strangers, and it also hoped that they will get new 
ideas to take to their own homes. 

Elsa's chief recreations are her " Little Garland" and 
her share in pleasure parties. The wreath or garland 
idea is a pretty one : Elsa and five friends of the same 
age meet once a week for tea and cake and talk 

and sewing, at the 
home of each in 
turn. What is said 
within the circle 
is not to be re- 
peated outside. 

KINDERGARTEN 
AND SCHOOL LIFE 

Germany is the 
home of the kin- 
dergarten. Fried- 
rich Froebel, 
founder of these 
" Children's Gar- 
dens," was born in 
a village in the 
Thuringian Forest 
in 1782. His own 
early sufferings 
made him, all his 
life, eager to give happiness to little children. Froe- 




PRIEDRICH FROEBEL 



44 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

bel's father was the pastor of several village church- 
es — too busy to care for his own little family — and 
Froebel's mother died in his infancy. 

The boy's uncle took care of him and sent him to 
school, but the lad was so quiet that people thought 
him a dunce. When he was fifteen years old, he was 
apprenticed to a forester, and spent two years in the 
Thuringian Forest, learning to love trees, plants, and 
all living things. 

From the age of seventeen his life was one of 
change, poverty, and homelessness. For a time 
he studied at the University of Jena, the oldest 
university in Germany, but, being so very poor, 
was finally imprisoned for debt. Afterward he went 
from one place to another doing what work he 
could find. 

He first taught school in Frankfort-on-the-Main. 
This proved to him that teaching was his special 
gift. He went to Yerdon, Switzerland, to learn 
teaching from Pestalozzi, the great Swiss teacher, 
and coming back to Germany, studied, worked, and 
waited, hoping to open a model school in his 
fatherland. 

His first model school was opened at Keilhan in the 
Thuringian Forest, when he was thirty-six years old. 
The school won fame, but brought in so little money 
that Froebel and his helpers nearly starved. After a 
time he went to Switzerland, to open schools like the 
one at Kielhan. He taught Swiss teachers how to 
teach, and while thus working discovered that children 
up to the school age were quite as much in need of 
care and training as at any other time in their life. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 45 

Froebel thought the earhest years — from infancy 
to seven — important, and wrote a book in 1826 showing 
what training a child should then receive. This book, 
"The Education of Man/' was his great work. His 
first kindergarten was opened in 1837 in the village 
of Blankenburg, near Keilhan. Kindergarten means 
"garden of children." He chose this name because 
he thought of the little ones as young plants which 
were cared for as if in a garden. This was his idea: 

"In the kindergarten the children's employment 
should be play^^; but any occupation in which children 
delight is play to them. They must have employ- 
ment which not only delighted them but "strength- 
ened their bodies, awakened their minds, and made 
them acquainted with nature and their fellow crea- 
tures." 

Froebel worked for, lectured about, and wrote 
articles on kindergartens the rest of his life. He died 
in his seventy-first year without seeing his kindergarten 
idea accepted by the German people. Only since his 
death have these children's gardens been widely es- 
tablished. The Prussian government forbade the 
opening of kindergartens during Froebel' s life; but 
now the best of these schools are found in Berlin. 

We spend one morning in a Berlin kindergarten. 
It is a cheerful house, with blooming plants in the win- 
*dows, birds singing in the gardens, and little people 
singing through the house. We begin with the baby 
room, where wee tots are happy with toys, and where 
a pretty young lady sings to them and tells them 
stories. Near by is the bath room, where the scrubbing 
and polishing of soiled little folk is making a great 



46 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

stir, for many of these children are from very poor 
homes where even baths cannot be had. 

Down this hall are rows of pleasant rooms with 
walls beautifully tinted and adorned with such pic- 
tures as children love — story pictures, and drawings 
of animals, birds, and flowers. In one room flower- 
gardening is the main business of a happy little com- 
pany. Some are making fancy beds in sand trays, 
with tiny hoes and rakes. Some are filling pots with 
pansy plants, and some are watering the window 
boxes where pansies are already blooming. 

In other rooms the children are weaving mats of 
colored paper, or sewing tiny quilt patches, or dressing 
dolls, or playing games. There is a wonderful game in 
which each child is a bird and has to sing and flop his 
wings and fly about in a circle. There are no "teach- 
ers," for this is not a school. The lovely young ladies 
in charge are called "children gardeners" (kinder- 
garteners) . There is a real flower garden outside , 
where each child old enough to care for it has his own 
plot of ground and raises his own pansies. 

From here we go to visit a Housekeeping School for 
poor girls. In it girls are trained for domestic service. 
There are so few signs of poverty in Berlin that we 
wonder where the very poor live. We never see a 
beggar in Germany. Begging is forbidden by law. 
We are told that the basement and garret stories of 
the large apartment houses shelter Berlin's poor. 
Hidden away in dark, cold rooms of these high build- 
ings one may find misery and suffering. The House- 
keeping School is one of many charities established to 
help these unfortunate ones. Here the young girls 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 47 

are taught every kind of household duty , with lessons 
in common school branches besides. 

The law compels every child between the ages of 
six and fourteen to attend school — private or public, 
and private schools must be good, for the government 
inspects them all. Germany has schools for teaching 
every profession, art, handicraft, trade and occupa- 
tion. Boys are better educated than girls. Ger- 
mans think that a girl's best education is a house- 
wife's training — instruction in cooking, sewing, and 
mending. But boys are crammed with knowledge, 
and what they do not learn in school they learn after- 
ward in the army, for every able-bodied male Ger- 
man must serve two years in the standing army. 
How these German lads do toil and moil at books ! 

Here is a baby boy going to school in a push cart. 
He is but two years old, but the kindergarten has a 
course of study for him — a course in doll playing and 
toys. He must learn to be pleasant and not cry 
when he wants things, and later on he must learn 
Bible stories and little songs. 

At the age of six he starts to school, where he stays 
until he is fourteen. At school he must "walk chalk" 
in deportment and know his lessons well, for German 
schoolmasters are strict and so well educated them- 
selves that they will not endure careless work from 
their pupils. 

A school recess of twenty minutes is given about 
ten o'clock each morning, for the second breakfast. 
Poor children in the city schools are given free lunches. 
Our boy munches his bread and butter sandwich in a 
hurry, and gets a chance to play a game or two with 



48 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

the rest of the fellows, while the teachers take their 
second breakfast around a big table in their lunch 
room. City schools have baths, and lunch rooms^ 
and even a physician in attendance, to see to any pupil 
who needs his care. 

Pleasant spots in this life of hard study are the 
long out-door school excursions always made by 
German teachers and their pupils. They tramp 
through field and forest, and climb hills, and ford 
streams, studying their botany and geology and other 
nature lessons. 

When our boy finishes his long high-school course 
and passes the difficult examinations with credit, he 
finds that excellence in school grades has freed him 
from all but one year's service in the army. This 
one year of army service is fine training. Our boy 
learns to carry himself well — back flat, head up, and 
step firm. He must obey orders to the letter, be on 
time, rough it without complaint, keep his temper, 
and show industry and courage. Besides he goes on 
long marches, and, moving from place to place, sees 
more of his country. 

At the end of his army year he enters the University 
at Berlin or Heidelberg, or Halle, or any one of the 
twenty-two which exist in the fatherland. In the 
university he may if he chooses stay the rest of his 
life, finding fresh subjects of study each year, and 
passing harder and harder examinations. But per- 
haps he decides to become a physician. He is now 
twenty-six years old and has been working long in 
the university. Still, he must enter a new school — 
the School of Medicine — and drudge away for five 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 49 

years more, preparing to pass a difficult government 
examination. 

At the age of thirty-one our boy begins to practice 
medicine. He is quite elderly, is he not, to be begin- 
ning life? But Germans do not get an early start in 
their life work; they have so much preparing to do 
beforehand. People now call our boy Herr Doktor, 
and pay him — what they please. German physicians 
do not send in bills. Patients pay their doctors once 
a year whatever they think a fair amount, 

A German girl's school history is more briefly told. 
Our boy's sister, Elsa, goes to school later in 
the morning and comes home earlier. Boys and 
girls are in separate school buildings. Elsa studies 
less mathematics than her brother, but she learns 
to knit, sew, embroider, and darn, until her sample 
pieces displayed at a school examination, look like 
art work. 

By and by Elsa will go to the High School — the 
Girls' High School — and study French, English, 
history, and the masterpieces of German literature. 
The glories of the Fatherland — its history, art, lit- 
erature, heroes — that is what every German boy and 
girl must know. 

And they must all know how to sing Luther's hymns, 
which the sturdy old monk composed for his beloved 
German people; and the grand old chorals of other Ger- 
man masters; and the folk-songs, and patriotic songs 
dear to every German heart. It is a pleasure to hea.* 
these German school children sing, for theirs is rea^ 
music, full of sweetness and melody. They can sing 
us any number of songs. 



50 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



Would you like to know something of the daily life 
of the sons of Emperor William II? These princes 
do not have any easier lot than falls to other German 
children. The older boys are under military disci- 




THE EMPEROR, EMPRESS AND FAMILY 

pline. The younger sons live at Potsdam and have 
their lessons there. 

They rise at 6 o'clock and are allowed but a quarter 
of an hour in which to wash and dress. From 6:20 
to 7:20 they have their first lesson; then their break- 
fast of milk and coffee and buttered rolls, with a boiled 
egg every other day. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 51 

At 7:35 they start for the hiinting-box at Linstedt, 
one on a bicycle, another on a tricycle, and the youngest 
walking with the governess. There they study from 
8 to 10 o'clock. At 10 they have another breakfast 
of sandwiches and fruit and a glass of water with a 
little wine in it; this they must eat while walking 
around the table, to keep their digestion in order. 

They study from 10:20 to 1, when they return to 
the new palace at Potsdam and have dinner. This 
consists of soup, fish, and roast with preserves. Every 
third day a sweet dish is added to the bill of fare- 
On holidays only are they allowed to drink wine, or 
to have bon-bons. From 3 to 4 they study; then 
comes the swimming lesson, which usually lasts till 
6, and is the most pleasant part of the day. At 7 
they have supper, consisting of cold meats and sand- 
wiches. At 7:30 or 8 they are sent to bed. 

Now how would you like to exchange places with 
a German Prince? 

HOLIDAYS 

In many parts of Germany every saint's day is a 
school holiday. At Christmas ten days are allowed 
for recreation and rest. And very busy days they are. 
A fair is always held before Christmas, and the children 
have fair-money given them with which to purchase 
gifts and add to the decoration of the Christmas tree. 

They begin very early to get ready for Christmas 
in Germany. Many weeks beforehand the making of 
clothing for the poorer children begins. Then comes 
a "distribution" day, when these little children march 
in and receive their presents of clothing, for which 
they are very grateful. 



52 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

There are many very poor people in Germany, though 
we do not see any beggars. They hve away up in 
the highest tenement houses, with httle fire, the 
poorest of food and scanty clothing. If it were not for 
the kind hearts of their more fortunate neighbors at 
Christmas time they would have a hard struggle to 
live at all. 

Many are unable to secure work, or food and cloth- 
ing for themselves, and the law forbids them to beg, 
so numbers of them are driven to other lands to 
find homes. 

About a week before Christmas the marketplaces 
are given up to the sale of Christmas gifts and orna- 
ments. This they call Christ-Market, for the German 
people teach the children that all Christmas gaiety 
is because Christ was born, and that he always re- 
members the little ones and sends them gifts. 

All of the squares and many of the streets are turned 
into miniature cedar forests, for thousands of ever- 
green trees, fastened in little wooden supports, are 
brought to Berlin from Thuringia, where their growth 
is a regular business. Every family, rich or poor, 
manages to have a tree. 

The dolls are taken from the attics and sent to the 
doll-doctor, who mends the broken heads and arms and 
legs, and sends them home almost as good as new. 
The toys, and doll houses, and castles, and playthings 
of all kinds are brought out and painted or freshened 
so as to be ready for the holidays. 

The children write and give to their parents a list of 
presents they would like to have. Just before Christ- 
mas a rather alarming looking individual, dressed 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 53 

oddly, and carrying a great bag and a bunch of twigs, 
comes to the house. He stamps about, stick in hand, 
and demands to know if the children have been good 
and said their prayers. If the answer is "yes", their 
chances for Christmas presents are good; if not, a stick 
from this bunch of twigs is supposed to be used as a 
penalty. 

If the children have deserved reward, the big bag is 
opened, and quantities of nuts are thrown about; the 
children scramble for them and a general good time 
follows. This yearly visitor is usually some friend 
of the family and is known as "Ruprecht." 

There is something else that each little German boy 
and girl has at Christmas time, and that is Pfeffer 
Kuchen. It is a sort of spice cake with nuts in it, and 
Is made in all sort§ of shapes. There are large squares 
and stars and circles, cows, pigs, horses, and elephants. 

Every child must eat of this, and so they plan all 
the year to get enough money to buy it. They save 
all their spare pfennigs (one-fourth of a cent) and 
give them to the baker, who will bake this cake at 
Christmas. He gives credit to each child for this 
money and at Christmas the children are sure of this 
cake of the season, of which there are three varieties 
according to quality and cost. Think of eating a 
'^ first," "second," or "third" class cake! 

Christmas Eve in a German household is a most 
touching as well as beautiful sight. At a given signal 
the door leading into the festal room is thrown open, 
while the family, including the servants, enter and 
circle roimd the table on which stands the brilliant 
^ree, singing " Heilige-Nacht " (Holy Night), one of 



54 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

the most beautiful hymns ever written; while even the 
air breathes out a Christmas perfume owing to a twig 
of the tree having been intentionally burned before 
the door was opened. 

The children gather around the tree, while their 
father tells them the story of the babe who was born 
in Bethlehem so many years ago, the Christ-Child 
whose birthday we celebrate. Then the gifts are 
taken off the tree, and each child gives something to 
father and mother, if it is only a paper bookmark or a 
pretty card. Children must all give their parents 
something, if ever so simple. Little kindergarten 
children give something they have made for them at 
school, and those who are old enough write little verses 
for their parents on illuminated paper beautifully 
decorated with pictures. 

The curtains are not put down in these German 
houses on Christmas Eve, so that a visitor may walk 
about the streets and look inside the homes where 
all this happy celebration is going on. Thesa trees 
are kept over till New Year's, when they are lighted 
up again and the windows are again left so that every- 
body outside may enjoy the home festivities. In 
some parts of Germany it is the custom, on the morn- 
ing before Christmas, to have a figure representing 
the Christ-Child go past the window of the room 
where the children lie asleep. They wake, perhaps, 
in the early light, and fall asleep again, thinking they 
have seen the Christ-Child. 

In Germany, Santa Claus's helpers are the god- 
fathers. All the little German children go to their 
godfather's house, and there they find a small manger 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 55 

cradle with a Christ-Child in it, and gifts for every 
child. In one part of Germany the people bind a 
great wheel with straw, and take it to the top of a 
hill by the river, where they set fire to it and start 
the blazing wheel down the hillside. The children 
watch eagerly to see if Santa Claus remembers them 
and guides their wheel safely down the hill to the 
river. 

The week after Christmas is a gay one. There 
are doll parties and dinners and christenings, and plays 
at the theater, and concerts, till New Year's Day has 
come and gone. Then the large toys and doll houses 
and furniture are sent to the attic to wait for another 
Christmas to roll around. 

Easter is a holiday almost equal to the Christmas 
season. For days before, the children hang about the 
shop windows, gazing with eager eyes at the cunning 
rabbits and nests of eggs. There are eggs of every 
color and size; eggs made of sugar and of chocolate, 
of soap, of glass, of wood and of china; eggs tied 
with ribbons and eggs decorated with pictures. 

In the marketplace one can buy hard-boiled eggs, 
and candy lambs and goats, chickens and horses. 
But here we find more hares than in any other coun- 
try. The children believe that the Easter hares 
bring the colored eggs. So at Easter they make 
nests of moss and twigs, which they hide in the house 
or garden. On Easter morning they rise very early 
to see what the Easter hare has brought them. They 
find not only colored egg shells, but sugar, and wooden, 
and china eggs, and sometimes egg-shaped boxes or 
baskets filled with candy. Families have little gath- 



56 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMAN!" 

erings and exchange mementos Great quantities 
of cake are consumed, and everyone is gay and glad, 
for it is the welcome to spring. There is great re- 
joicing that the long, cold winter has passed. 

THE ARMY AND NAVY 

Playing soldier is a favorite game with German 
boys. Often we see coming down some street a 
little troop of small boys marching in fine order, 
with flags flying and drum beating. Astride a stick 
is their officer, who copies the airs of a real army 
commander. Very likely the lad will be a real officer 
some day, for every German boy must have his period 
of soldiering. 

Every male German able to bear arms must serve 
in the standing army from his twentieth to his twenty- 
seventh year. If the country needs him he may 
have to enlist at the age of eighteen. Two years 
of his army service (shortened to one for excellence 
in high-school studies) must be spent ''with the col- 
ors," that is, in real service. 

Every year about four hundred thousand young 
fellows in Germany arrive at the age of twenty. 
Not all of them are needed; so the proper number are 
chosen by lot. These are taken to the barracks in 
the different towns by train-loads. Each is given 
five suits of clothing, two for daily use and three 
for festive occasions. They live in barracks and are 
allowed four cents a day for table (mess) expenses, 
and one and two-fifths poimds of bread. 

When marching, each wears his best suit, with a 
tin tag on his collar to show who he is, in case of ac- 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 57 

cident. Besides his full knapsack, he carries a roll 
of bandages; and he used to have a hymn-book sewed 
into his blouse. 

German soldiers are finely trained. Frederick the 
Great taught the world how to form and drill armies, 
and ever since his day Prussia has had the best- 
disciplined troops in, the world. Each autumn the 
whole army is put through mock battles — called army 
maneuvers — on a great plain south of Berlin. The 
emperor acts as general-in-chief and has with him 
distinguished visitors from different countries. 

The maneuvers of 1902 called about ninety thousand 
soldiers into the field. In time of peace the standing 
army is composed of six hundred thousand men 
and nearly twenty-five thousand officers; and there 
are over one hundred thousand army horses, splendid 
animals, spirited and intelligent — no finer can be 
seen elsewhere. 

The German navy ranks fifth among the navies 
of the world, England's- navy being first. But Em- 
peror Wilhelm II. has set about building up a strong 
navy; and he is a man who always finishes what 
he begins. At present there are twenty-three thou- 
sand men and twenty-seven battleships and cruisers. 
New battleships and armored cruisers are being 
built from time to time, and more boys are being 
trained at the naval schools. 

We shall visit the Naval Academy at Kiel, north 
of Hamburg, in time, and see some of the battleships. 
Both army and navy are equipped with the famous 
Krupp guns, which are made in the town of Essen, 
in Western Germany. 



58 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



POTSDAM 

Sixteen miles southwest of Berlin is the little city 
of Potsdam — the summer residence of the kings of 
Prussia. It is called the "Prussian Versailles/' be- 
cause, like the French town, it is a city of royal 
palaces, with vast parks and gardens. In Potsdam 
are the palaces of Babelsburg, the Marble Palace, 
the New Palace, the Old Schloss, and Sans Souci. 
Most of them are full of memorials of Frederick the 
Great. 




SUMMER PALACE OF THE EMPEROR AT POTSDAM 

The boyhood of Frederick the Great was unhappy. 
His father, King Frederick William I., was a man 
of violent temper, tyrannical and cruel. Once Fred- 
erick was even condemned to death by the hard old 
man, but was saved by neighboring rulers, who per- 
suaded the king to pardon his son. Later in life, 
the old king grew proud of his son and foresaw that 
Frederick would win fame as a ruler and soldier. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 59 

Many tales are told to show the people's love for 
Frederick the Great; for though he too had a bad 
temper, he was not a tyrant like his father, and while 
he sometimes aroused the anger of his subjects, their 
forgiveness was easily won. One day he was riding 
along a street in Berlin when he came upon a crowd 
of people who were looking upward at a picture 
posted high above their heads. Frederick ordered 
his groom to learn what the picture was. 

^'They have something posted up about your 
Majesty," reported the groom; and he explained 
that it was a comic picture representing the king as 
an unjust collector of taxes. Frederick had recently 
angered his people by his new tax sysLtem. 

"Hang the picture lower," ordered Frederick, rid- 
ing on, "hang it lower, that the people need not hurt 
their necks looking up at it." 

His order was repeated to the crowd, and won 
their hearts back to Old Fritz. Up went their hats, 
with loud shouts, while the picture was torn into 
shreds 

In Potsdam is a windmill with a story to it. Fred- 
erick the Great thought this windmill an unpleasing 
object — it was a shabby old affair— and ordered its 
owner to remove it. The owner refused to do so. 
He would not destroy his property to please even 
the king. Frederick reminded him that the king 
had power to have it destroyed; but the owner re- 
plied that he would take the matter to law, for was 
not Prussian law more powerful than the king? This 
sturdy defence of his rights by the owner so pleased 
Frederick that he gave the man money to improve 



60 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

his windmill, and to this day it is kept in repair in 
memory of the great king's defeat by his subject. 

Babelsburg Palace, situated in an extensive park, 
beside a lovely lake, is a modern villa. The Marble 
Palace is built largely of marble, and is full of rich 
furniture, ornaments, relics, and rare pictures. The 
"New Palace" was built by Frederick the Great 
at the end of the Seven Years' War to prove to his 
enemies that the war had not left him in poverty. 

Its most notable apartment is the grotto room, 
built circular in shape to resemble a grotto, and hav- 
ing the floor and curved walls inlaid with sea shells, 
crystals, metals, stalactites, and brilliant-hued gems. 
Rock-crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling and, 
when lighted, make the room blaze with splendor. 

The Old Schloss of Potsdam is over two hundred 
and fifty years old. It was the home of Frederick 
the Great and his testy royal father, and is crowded 
with souvenirs of the past — paintings, porcelains, 
bronzes, suits of armor, tapestries, books, all of rare 
value. The Old Schloss would be a good place to 
study Prussian history. 

In the rooms of Frederick the Great we see cases 
full of French books; for he talked and wrote in 
French, always declaring that he hated the German 
language. Here are his flute, his piano, and music 
stand, in a room where many a concert was given 
to some brilliant group of friends. Frederick gath- 
ered about him the great people of his day — musi- 
cians, authors, and artists. 

A little room adjoining his bed-chamber was often 
the scene of midnight banquets to which he invited 



A LITTLE JOUKNEY TO GERMANY 61 

only intimate friends. In order to have these feasts 
quite private, undisturbed even by servants, he 
had a table built on a platform which, worked by 
a secret spring, would disappear through the floor 
to regions below, to reappear presently all set with 
viands. After each course the table made its mys- . 
terious trip down through the floor, while the guests f 
remained seated, to await its return. The walls 
of this room are very thick, made thus to protect 
his company from eavesdroppers. The great man 
loved dogs, and permitted them to race about the 
palace unchecked. We see the torn silken curtains, 
and marks of claws on the furniture, which remain 
to prove the dogs' rompings. 

When an old man Frederick presented to George 
Washington a Prussian sw^ord of honor, with this 
saying, "From the oldest general in the world to 
the greatest." 

The famous Sans Souci Palace is a building but 
one story high and of no special beauty. Its name was 
given by Frederick the Great and means ^^free from 
care." Here he lived almost constantly after the pal- 
ace was built in 1746, and here he died August 17, 
1786. The palace stands high above a series of ter- 
races with long flights of stairs leading from the 
lawn below. A magnificent park surrounds it. Walks 
wind beneath the oaks, beeches, firs, and laurels. 
Pavilions, fountains, summer houses, statuary, lakes, 
flower gardens, and stretches of soft turf make the 
park beautiful; some say that it is second to none 
in Europe. 

In the Garrison Church of Potsdam is the tomb 



62 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



of Frederick the Great. One enters a vault just 
under the pulpit and sees standing on the floor two 
plain caskets, the smaller containing the body of 
Frederick, the larger that of his father. Frederick's 
sword once rested upon his casket, but Napoleon 
carried it away when he visited the vault during 




WINDMILL AT POTSDAM NEAR THE OLD PALACE Or THE EMPEROR 



his occupation of Berlin. Looking upon the casket, 
Napoleon is said to have remarked thoughtfully: 
"Hadst thou lived, Frederick, I should never have 
been here" — a great general's tribute to one greater 
than he. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 63 

MARTIN LUTHER'S HOME 

We must not leave Northern Germany without 
a ghmpse of the httle old town of Wittenberg, once 
the home of Martin Luther. Every tourist wishes 
to see it, and thousands visit it every year. 

Who is this Martin Luther? If we were to ask that 
of a German child he would look at us in amazement. 
He would think we ought to know all about this 
wonderful man, because the work he did has helped 
the people of other countries, as well as Germany. 
Here the festivals with v/hich the people celebrate 
his birthday are the greatest festivals of the year, 
or the century. His name and memory are loved 
and honored more than those of any great man in 
German history. 

Everywhere we go, we see, or hear, or are reminded 
of Luther. In ^ the shops are Luther pictures, and 
memorials, and relics. In the streets are statues 
erected in his honor. In the churches and- schools 
and homes we hear the Bible he translated and the 
hymns he wrote. We hear Luther's lectures, and 
sermons and stories and songs without number. 
Almost every family in Northern Germany has his 
picture, and every child has a book telling the story 
of his life; and a very interesting story it is, too. 

There is not time to tell it all here. We can only 
glance at a few of the pages, before we visit the places 
this man has made famous, because of the seasons 
he passed in them. 

Four hundred and nineteen years ago, we learn, 
Martin Luther was born. He was a little peasant 
boy with weak health but a fine, musical voice and 



64 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

a thirst for knowledge. His parents were poor, so 
he was obUged to fight his way to learning. 

He sang and played his flute upon the streets 
and saved the pennies that were dropped into his 
hat, to pay his way. But his sweet voice made friends 
for him, who helped him to secure the education he 
so desired. He studied hard in the universities to 
fit himself to be a lawyer, but decided afterward 
to devote his life to the church, and therefore became 
a monk. 

After many years spent in preparation, in the uni- 
versities and monasteries, he went to Wittenberg 
to teach and to preach. He was a fine teacher, and 
during the time he was professor at Wittenberg, 
drew seventy thousand students from all parts of 
Europe. 

But it was as a minister that he became known 
to all the world. After a time he grew dissatisfied 
with the forms and practices of his church, the church 
of Rome, and attempted to introduce a simpler 
and what seemed to him a better form of worship. 
Many of the German people accepted his teachings 
and so was established the German Lutheran Church — 
a Protestant church. 

When Luther first became a priest the people 
knew little of the Bible. They could not read Latin, 
the language in which it was printed. He trans- 
lated it into the German tongue so that all might 
read for themselves. He gave to Germany a fixed 
language. Different dialects were spoken in the 
different provinces. In translating the Bible he used 
the German tongue in a way that all could under- 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 65 

stand. With the spread of the Bible this speech 
became the speech of the people. 

He was also the founder of church music. Before 
his time little music was heard in the churches. He 
loved music and believed that the singing of sacred 
songs would do much good. So he wrote many hymns, 
and arranged the Psalms with music. 

He was the founder of the general educational 
system of public schools. These did not exist when 
he was a boy. He planned them, wrote and talked 
of them, and helped to get them started. The study 
of the Bible in the schools was a part of his plan, 
and this is still kept up in Germany. 

Many other things Luther did for the world, and 
the German people feel very grateful to him. And 
now we look about the town of Wittenberg with fresh 
interest. We visit the university where he taught, 
the rooms he once occupied, the church where he 
preached and his last resting place. His grave is 
beneath the floor of the old castle church, with a 
slab to show where his ashes lie. 

In the marketplace of the town is a beautiful 
statue representing him. In his hand is an open 
Bible. His face is turned as though he would speak 
to us of this book. If we were to visit Wittenberg 
on his birthday, the 10th of November, we should 
find this marketplace thronged, and processions of 
school children, with flowers, wreaths and flags, 
marching through the streets singing Luther's chorals. 

From thousands of throats we should hear that 
grand old Battle Hymn — the best of all the hymns 
he wrote: — 



66 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



A mighty fortress is our God, 

A bulwark never failing: 
Our helper He amid the flood 

Of mortal ills prevailing. 
For still our ancient foe 
Doth seek to work his woe; 
His craft and power are great, 
And armed with cruel hate, 

On earth is not his equal. 

There were many who did not approve of Luther's 
teachings, and he was finally banished from Wit- 
tenberg and took refuge in Saxony, in the Castle 
Wartburg, near the town of Eisenach, It is but 







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lilTTHER'S BEDROOM AT WARTBURG 



a three-hours' ride from Berlin, and long before we 
reach the town we see the castle towering on the heights 
above it. In those long-ago days of Luther it would 
not have been an easy matter to reach this castle, 
and Luther was safe from his enemies while there. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 67 

It is a grand old fortress, with its noble gateway, 
its towers of defence, its mighty ramparts^ the pal- 
aces within its walls, its courts, baths and stables; 
but the part most interesting to us is the Luther 
room, just as it was when this brave Christian knight 
left it. Here he toiled day and night for months 
translating the Bible for his people. We should 
like to linger a time in this room, with its worn wooden 
floor, table, bookcase, porcelain stove, and pictures; 
but we must hurry on. 

THE SPREEWALD, AND OTHER FORESTS 

South of Berlin is the wild and Holland-like Spree- 
wald, or Spree Forest, an extensive tract of wood- 
land where the river Spree divides into more than 
two hundred branches, which are connected by 
numerous canals. Thus all the roads of the Spree- 
wald are waterways. One travels from village to 
village by boat, in winter on skates. This makes 
the region look like a bit of Holland, or "a Venice 
of farms and country inns." 

The people of the Spreewald are Vends, descend- 
ants of an ancient race which fled to this swampy 
land for safety from their enemies. They have turned 
the swamps into farm lands, and preserved their 
forests by constant planting. 

They still speak the curious Vendish tongue, and 
have retained many of their ancient customs. They 
believe in fairies, demons, witches, and water-nixies, 
and celebrate their weddings, christenings, and re- 
ligious holidays with the oddest of mummeries and 
pranks. 



68 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

They are a fine-looking people, far handsomer 
than their German cousins. The women still wear 
their quaint Vendish costumes of short full kirtle, 
great horned cap, and any quantity of necklaces and 
brooches. The men, mingling more with the outer 
world while in the army, are more modern in man- 
ners and dress. 

We hire a punt (or small flat boat) and make a 
tour through this queer, delightful old forest. We 
pass by farmhouses, where storks' nests are built 
on the steep mossy roofs, and where barns are stacked 
with hay, and meadows are starred with flowers, 
and farmyard pools have families of ducks and geese 
floating on their surfaces. 

As our boatman poles the boat down stream 
we meet many boats coming and going through 
these quiet water lanes — a woman poling a punt- 
load of carrots and cabbages; a boat full of school 
children singing and laughing; and many a little craft 
laden with farm laborers, or village folk — all gliding 
past us beneath the leafy canopy of the trees, while 
reedy swamps, and banks of willows, and vine-hung 
cottages are to be seen on either side. 

As night falls the magpies cease chattering in 
the trees and the raven's croak is silent. Then the 
cuckoos begin to call to their mates, and the night- 
ingale sings its sweetest song. We stay a night in a 
village inn which is over a hundred years old. The 
village has narrow cobblestone paths, and quiet 
water-alleys where boats are moored to moss-grown 
landings, and a church which is a relic of ages lon^ 
past. There are houses wreathed in vines, with 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 69 

thatched roofs and storks' nests, or finer homes 
with tiled roofs and high stoops and tiny windows. 
In the whole of Germany there is no more inviting 
spot than the Spree wald. 

The forests of Prussia cover one-fifth of its whole 
surface. All Germany is well wooded, but the chief 
forest regions are along the Rhine and the Elbe. In 
the entire empire there are about thirty-five million 
acres of forest land. All the states of the empire 
provide for forest lands by careful cutting of old 
trees and planting of )^oung ones. We see acres of 
tiny trees but a few inches high; other plantations 
where the trees are no higher than our heads; and 
still others of lusty fellows just ready for the sawmill. 

These German forests are plowed, irrigated, and 
cared for as carefully as are the fields. Oak, beech, 
chestnut and fir are the chief varieties of trees to be 
seen. Foresters are employed by the government 
and are men who have been trained in schools of 
forestry. Each large state has a school of forestry, 
with a course of training extending through five years. 
After passing the examinations of the school, a 
boy must spend five years as an apprentice, work- 
ing for almost no pay, but still learning, before he 
can be appointed a forester by the government. 

Germans love forest life and know no finer outing 
than a stay in the woods — which they prefer to the 
mountains or sea coast. Walking clubs are numerous 
in Germany; so one finds wayside inns, good paths, 
shelter houses, and roadside benches in . all the old 
forests where excursionists are common, and in every 
region of interest besides. 



70 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

FARn LANDS AND VILLAGES 

North Germany is a lowland plain sloping north- 
ward, and is crossed by several large rivers — the Vis- 
tula, Oder, Elbe, and Rhine — and by a network of 
canals connecting these rivers. The land along these 
waterways is very fertile. We take many a tramp- 
ing tour through the farm lands of North Germany, 
and discover that agriculture is the leading occupa- 
tion of the people, and that rye is the chief crop 
raised. One-fourth of all the soil tilled in Prussia is 
occupied by rye, for this furnishes the bread of the 
country. 

With knapsacks on our backs we tramp along a 
high-road looking across rye fields, orchards of apple, 
plum and cherry trees, acres on acres of potatoes 
(which are used both for food and for the distilling of 
spirits), and now and then wide fields of oats, wheat, 
barley, maize, and hops. The hops are used for 
making beer. . 

The whole country looks like one vast field, for 
there are no fences. Corner stones or plowed 
furrows mark the divisions between farms. No tres- 
passing upon one's neighbor's ground or thieving 
of fruit from his orchard ever occurs in Germany] 
Either the people are too honest to do so or they 
dare not. School children will pass trees laden with 
ripe fruit and never lift a hand to gather what is 
not their own. 

Women and girls do heavy farm work. We see 
them hoeing, cutting with scythes, trundling great 
wheelbarrows full of manure, and packing heavy 
bundles of hay on their backs. 



A LITTLE JOUENEY TO GERMANY 71 

Sometimes we pass an old farmhouse of sun- 
burned wood. It has a high, steep roof of red tiles, 
with the usual stork's nest among the chimneys. 
Storks are welcome to these German house roofs, 
and are so well .treated that they are quite tame even 
with children. When a child is born, people say 
that a stork brought the little one. 

Below the tiled roof are small latticed windows and 
much carving of scrolls and texts or verses on the 
heavy timbers of the eaves and gables. Creepers 
trail over the high stoops, and flowers bloom in the 
windows. Yellow-haired children playing about the 
door stare at us curiously. In an upper window we 
sometimes see a white-haired grandmother at her 
spinning-wheel, or she sits in the doorway knitting. 

German women knit without ceasing. Here comes 
one down the road, knitting a long stocking. On 
her back is a large basket of produce. Her head 
is bare, her face careworn, her feet clad only in wooden 
shoes, while her short full skirt of homespun does not 
reach her ankles. A baby's face peeps from the 
vegetable basket — a tiny infant done up in a case 
like an Indian papoose. It is tucked among the 
vegetables like a new kind of carrot, and has much 
the shape of a carrot, for swaddling clothes bind its 
limbs straight. , 

Here is a goose-girl watching her flock — and knit- 
ting; and here is a woman harnessed to a milk cart 
in company with a dog, knitting as she trudges along 
to the village. We see a pig-herd and a shepherd 
with his crook, but they are smoking long-necked 
pipes. East Prussia is famous for horses; southern 



72 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

and western Prussia for swine; north Prussia (in 
Pomerania) for great flocks of geese; and all Prussia 
for its sheep. 




SISTINE MADONNA IN THE GALLERY AT DRESDEN. 



BEET CULTIVATION 

We pass fields of sugar beets where hundreds of 
men, women and children are at work. Germany 
stands foremost in the production of beet sugar, 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 73 

making almost two million tons a year and having 
four hundred and forty factories for its manu- 
facture. 

Sugar beets are cultivated somewhat like turnips. 
Seed is sown in rows which are half a yard apart. 
When the young beets come up thick the rows must 
be thinned by hand, leaving the plants seven or 
eight inches apart. This work is the hardest part of 
beet culture. Whole families are hired for the weed- 
ing and thinning labor, so that the fields are alive 
with toilers. After this the acres of beets look as 
well kept as a flower garden. 

Later in the season come plowing and hoeing, 
and by September or October the harvest begins. 
Plows made for the purpose are drawn between the 
rows to loosen the beets from the soil. The labor- 
ers then go through the fields pulling out the 
plants, cutting off the tops with knives, and heap- 
ing the roots and tops in separate piles. Often 
the roots are loaded at once upon fiat cars and 
taken to the bee-tsugar factories before trimming 
the tops. 

At the factories the beets are trimmed, washed, 
crushed to a pulp, and the juice soaked out by drain- 
ing water through the pulp — a process not easy to 
understand and requiring much machinery. Nine 
pounds of roots yield a pound of raw sugar, which is 
then refined by different processes. The "leavings" 
from the sugar are made into molasses, the pulp is 
pressed into cakes for cow feed, and the tops are 
used for fertilizing. The sugar supply of the world 
is mostly beet sugar. 



74 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

A COUNTRY VILLAGE. 

We come to an inn which is the first house of a 
sleepy Httle village straggling along a country road. 
The inn is built of a stucco made of clay and cob- 
blestones, with a projecting upper story of heavy 
old timbers browned by the sun for a hundred 
years. The roof is gray with age, and the little win- 
dows are set in walls so thick that they look like parts 
of a fortress. On the weather-stained signboard is 
carved the picture of a jolly group with beer mugs. 

The landlord ushers us into an ancient wood-pan- 
eled dining room where a fat German army officer 
is dining at a little table. He rises, makes a stiff 
bow in honor of the ladies in our party, and returns 
to his dinner, giving us no further attention. 

We order a meal and while it is preparing explore 
the village. The road forms its one street, being 
roughly cobbled right across from house to house. 
The cottages look like toys, with their thatched roofs, 
odd gables, vine-wreathed doors, and small win- 
dows. Geese cackle about the dooryard, where chil- 
dren, pigs, and hens are mixed up together; and 
the housewives all come out on their funny little 
stoops to gaze at us. 

We see no church, for it is the custom to have but 
one church for several villageo, thus making possible 
a larger building and congregation for the pastor. 
But we find the schoolhouse. We hear the droning 
of boys' voices and rap at the door. 

The schoolmaster is proud to show his school to 
visitors from far-off America. He asks us what we 
wish to hear. Arithmetic? Very well — he puts his 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 75 

boys through a drill so hard and long that we open our 
eyes. Country schools in America do no such work 
as this. Then the boys sing for us — Martin Luther's 
glorious old hymn, "Ein' feste Burg": 

"A mighty fortress is our God, 
A bulwark never failing." 

We think this Luther hymn sung by German 
schoolboys the sweetest music we have heard in the 
Fatherland. Then comes ''America" or what we 
take to be ''America/' but find it is the tune only; 
the words are their own, "Hail, Kaiser -to Thee." 

The villagers come out to see us return to the inn. 
People stand in front of their houses, bowing respect- 
fully and wishing us "Gut en Tag." To these simple 
folk we are great sights, being from the wonderful 
America to which so many of their friends have em- 
igrated. The landlord takes us to his daughter's 
house, the best home in the village. All the family 
shake our hands and bid us "Wilkommen!" — for are 
we not from the very American city where the son 
of the house now lives? 

We are seated on the sofa in the little parlor — 
the place of honor. The sofa is reserved for dis- 
tinguished guests. There is a porcelain stove, and 
a Bible according to Luther's translation, and a 
picture of the emperor on the walls, and so much 
else to be seen that we are glad to be shown the whole 
house. The bed rooms are stuffy and dark, with 
bunks built against the walls for beds. 

The kitchen is a gem of a room — wood-paneled 
with tiny latticed windows, and shelves of brightly 
polished brassware, porcelain jugs and jars, and 



76 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

rare old china cups and plates. Everything is clean 
and shining. Even the hooks on which hang mugs, 
and pitchers are decorated with little ribbon bows. 
We should like to put this house — indeed this whole 
village — into our trunks and take it home to hang 
on a Christmas tree among other toys for the children. 

THE HARZ MOUNTAINS 

A foot tour through the Harz Mountains shows us 
this most famous birthplace of fairy tales, supersti- 
tions and legends. The Harz is a short range of 
mountains in northwestern Germany, forming a water- 
shed between the Elbe and Weser rivers. The highest 
peak is the Brocken, which rises three thousand, seven 
hundred and forty feet above sea level. The Upper 
Harz, lying west of the Brocken, is more elevated, 
with a colder climate than that of the Lower Harz. 

The scenery is beautiful, the air wholesome, and 
the mountain-climbing is just difficult enough to 
be attractive. So tourists throng the region in sum- 
mer, wandering in the pine forests, climbing heather- 
covered hills, and drinking beer at the many inns 
of the various resorts. 

There are forty towns, many villages, and numer- 
ous wayside resorts in this picturesque region. We see 
quaint old towns full of curious relics; ancient houses 
built of wood and stone, with high-pitched gables 
ornamented with odd carvings, and lattices over 
which vines grow ; their time-stained doors are as solid 
as those of a prison, having brass door-knockers, 
shaped in the form of satyrs and dragons and dol- 
phins 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



77 



These villages, also, look like toys, with their little 
cottages, their cows, sheep, goats, herdsmen, charcoal 
burners, yellow-haired children, their cobbled streets, 
and their background of green hills and wooded 
uplands. There are plenty of good carriage roads, 
railways, hotels, gardens, cafes, summer villas, and 
such modern conveniences in the Harz, besides. 

But we leave these modern resorts, to visit the 







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TOWN IN THE HARZ MOUNTAINS 



villagers. Most of these humble folk work in the 
mines or quarries, or are charcoal burners. Raising 
canary birds is a great industry here. Nearly every 
house is full of cages and nests with little birds twit- 
tering in a chorus. These sweet songsters are sold 
even in foreign lands. Sometimes the Harz canary 
birds travel away to America. 



78 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

The rich mines of the Harz are not worked as 
they have been in past years, but they still yield 
iron, lead, zinc, copper, arsenic, and some silver. 
Formerly gold was mined in large quantities. Near 
the town of Goslar is a mine which has been worked 
eight hundred years, yielding both gold and silver, 
besides the other minerals. 

The quarries yield granite, porphyry, slate, marble, 
and alabaster. Germany abounds in useful minerals. 
Coal and iron come from the province of Silesia, 
and from the kingdom of Saxonj^; zinc is found in 
Silesia and other parts of Prussia, which is the fore- 
most country in the world in the production of zinc. 
There are rich iron ore fields in the Grand Duchy 
of Luxemburg, and rich copper mines in Saxony. 

We explore the caves and grottoes, the rocky 
heights and shaded valleys, where the witches are 
said to meet, or where legend locates some well- 
known scene. A railway up the Brocken takes us 
to the very headquarters of witchery. On the sum- 
mit of the Brocken the hobgoblins, some say, hold 
a carnival on '^Walpurgis night" — the eve of May- 
day. 

Here, too, we are shown the great granite blocks 
called the Witches' Altar, and the Devil's Pulpit. 
The Harz peasants still believe the Brocken haunted 
by specters, and put signs on their houses to protect 
themselves from evil spells. During Walpurgis week 
they stay indoors, afraid to venture forth at night, 
while the children fear to cry aloud lest a bogie or 
hobgoblin carry them off. 

The ''Brocken specter" is a strange appearance 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



79 



of real objects which are seemingly enlarged by their 
reflection against a wall of vapor that at times rises 
from the valleys below. At such a time a human 
being sees his reflection in the vapor as large as a 




THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 



giant, while huts and rocks are also huge in size. 

We see the scene of the Maiden's Leap, a chasm 

enclosed by steep cliffs, Across this chasm, says 

legend, the Princess Brunhilde leaped on her charger 



80 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

when fleeing to her lover, the Prince of the Harz, 
from the pursuit of Bodo, a giant. Bodo had deter- 
mined to wed the princess, and followed her when 
she fled from him. Her great white horse leaped 
the chasm; but Bodo's weight was too great, and 
his horse, in jumping across, fell into the valley below, 
now called the valley of the Bode, in memory of the 
.old tale. We are shown a great ''foot-print" in 
the solid rock, said to be the mark made by the 
hoof of Brunhilde's horse when the animal leaped 
across the abyss. 

At every turn a legend is told us while in the Harz. 
Goethe, the German poet, has made this witch-land 
of the Harz the scene of many events in his great 
poem, ''Faust." 

THE PIPER OF HAMELN 

Excursions from the Harz to a group of old cities 
northwest of these mountains give us glimpses of 
Brunswick, Hanover, and the storied town of Ham- 
eln or Hamelin. Brunswick is the capital of the duchy 
of Brunswick and is rich in curious old wooden 
houses of the fifteenth century. The Brunswick Town 
Hall built in the year 1300, is a fine bit of ancient 
architecture. Hanover, too, is full of interesting build- 
ings, relics of far-off times. The present royal fam- 
ily of England are descendants of the kings of Han- 
over. 

But Hameln attracts us chiefly because we have 
been reading "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," by Robert 
Browning, the English poet: 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 81 

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick, 
By famous Hanover city; 

The river Weser, deep and wide, 
Washes its wall on the southern side; 
A pleasanter spot you never spied; 
But when begins my ditty, 

Almost five hundred years ago. 
To see the townsfolk suffer so 
From vermin, was a pity. 
The legend is this: In the year 1284 Hamehi was 
over-run with rats — hundreds and hundreds of them 
— until there was no living in the town with the pests. 
Rats! 
They fought the dogs and killed the cats, , 

And bit the babies in the cradles, 
And ate the cheeses out of the vats, 

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles. 
Split open the kegs of salted sprats. 
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, 
And even spoiled the women's chats 
By drowning their speaking 
With shrieking and squeaking 
In fifty different sharps and flats. 
The people were in despair, and even thought of 
leaving Hameln, bag and baggage, when a piper 
appeared in town. He was an odd-looking body: 
His queer long coat from heel to head 
Was half of yellow and half of red; 
And he himself was tall and thin. 
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin. 
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin. 
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin. 
But lips where smiles went out and in — 
There was no guessing his kith and kin! 
And nobody could enough admire 
The tall man and his quaint attire. 



82 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

He told the people of Hameln that he could draw 
all the rats after him into the river Weser, merely 
by playing on his pipe» He asked a thousand guilders 
as his pay, but the people cried joyfully that he 
should have fifty thousand guilders. 

Into the street the Piper stept 

Smiling first a little smile, 
As if he knew what magic slept 

In his quiet pipe the while; 
Then, like a musical adept, 
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, 
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled. 
Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled; 
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, 
You heard as if an army muttered; 
And the muttering grew to a grumbling; 
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; 
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling: 
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, 
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats. 
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, 
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, 

Families by tens and dozens. 
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives — 
Followed the Piper for their lives. 
. From street to street he piped advancing, 
, And step for step they followed dancing, 

, Until they came to the river Weser, 

Wherein all plunged and perished! 

Then, the Hameln people being rid of their rats, 
refused to pay the Piper. He went away, but on June 
26th returned and, walking through the streets, played 
a soft, sweet melody. Straightway all the children 
of Hameln came thronging after him: 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 83 

Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, 

Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering, 

And, like fowls in a farmyard when barley is scattering, 

Out came the children running. 

All the little boys and girls, 

With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls. 

And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls. 

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 

The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. 

He led them out of town to the Koppelberg hill, 
in whose side a door suddenly opened. In went 
the Piper, followed by all the children; and the 
door in the mountain-side shut forever. One lame 
child only was shut out, because he could not reach 
the door in time. 

Mr. Browning wrote the ^Tiper" to amuse a little 
sick boy, and some people would have us believe 
that it was not founded on fact. But when we visit 
this old walled town of Hameln and find a street 
called the Pied Piper's street, and are shown the 
very house in which the Ratcatcher lived — how 
can we doubt the truth of the tale? 

It was said that for many years after the rat pesti- 
lence the Hameln people dated all events from the 
day the Piper spirited away the children. 

HAMBURG 

Good fortune gives us a ride down the great river 
Elbe to Hamburg. We go on a barge loaded with 
wood, paying the owner to receive us as passengers 
along with his family. These large, fiat-bottomed 
crafts are forever moving in endless procession along 
the rivers and canals of Germany; and the inland 



84 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



waterways of Germany are many and long — eight 
thousand six hundred and fifty-four miles long, 
when their length is added together. 

Our barge is taking wood to Hamburg, and will 
carry back to Dresden a load of raw cotton. It 
is one hundred feet long and has a tiny cabin in the 
center where bunks are built. The bargeman's wife 
cooks her meals in a huge pot hung over an open 
fire which blazes on a little brick platform. 




HAMBURG, SHOWING DOCK AND WAREHOUSE 



We pass other barges, from Berlin, from Dr'^sden, 
from Breslau, and from other inland towns. Many 
are returning from Hamburg, loaded with wool, 
raw cotton, wheat, rye, coffee, raw hides, and manu- 
factured goods of various kinds. The banks of the 
Elbe are low, and we see the country far and wide. 
Meadows are bright with flowers; old windmills 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 85 

wave their arms against the horizon; peasants' huts 
peer from vines by the water side; swans sail among 
the water-hhes along our way; and storks and cranes 
stand on the banks, watching our movements. We 
pass many large towns and villages. 

Presently we are in Hamburg, where the river is 
alive with ships, wharfs and warehouses, and where 
canals seem to be the only streets until a droshky 
takes us from this busy river side of the city to a 
modern hotel in the fashionable* quarter. Here we 
see broad streets lined with trees, beautiful parks 
and gardens, and large sheets of water encircled by 
pleasant promenades. The houses of this quarter 
are like palaces, the streets are clean, and the people 
well-dressed and prosperous looking. A great part 
of Hamburg was destroyed by fire in 1842;^ and has 
since been rebuilt on a splendid scale. 

First we climb to the steeple of the church of St. 
Michael for a view of the city with its harbor, canals 
and surrounding country. This steeple is four 
hundred and thirty-two feet high. 

This old ^'free town" of Hamburg is the chief 
commercial city of Europe. It lies on the east bank 
of the Elbe, about eighty miles from the mouth and 
has a magnificent port, formed by the river's broad 
expanse. Ships come and go at Hamburg from every 
part of the globe, over six thousand entering the 
port in a year. An array of tall masts fly the flags 
of all nations, though the British red is seen oftener 
than any other. There are docks here which have 
cost the government millions of dollars. Liverpool 
and New York docks seem poor in comparison. Each 



86 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

great foreign port has its storehouses, with huge 
machinery for handhng freight by shiploads. There 
are elevators and warehouses, railway tracks and 
electric cars, and windlasses which are creaking with 
the labor of lifting goods into upper stories. 

We see ships loading for foreign ports with beet- 
root sugar, hops, coal, coke, woolen goods, leather 
goods, cotton cloth, machinery, porcelain, glassware, 
linen, and much else. Other ships are bringing 
petroleum and raw cotton from the United States; 
and coffee from South America; and coal from Eng- 
land; and — the list is a long one. 

Besides the sea-going vessels, we look upon numer- 
ous boats of the river Elbe, which come by the inland 
water routes. The ''back streets" of Hamburg are 
really canals, called "fleets." All through the poorer 
part of the city wind these canals, bordered by ware- 
houses with upper stories overhanging the water. 
Barges move noiselessly up and down the quiet 
water lanes; one is reminded of Venice with its 
gondolas. 

The "fleets district" is full of the homes of the poor 
who live in cellars and badly-lighted old houses and 
win a* livelihood by scrambling about the canal beds 
when the water is low, hunting for. articles of value 
lost by the boats. 

The river Elbe forms an estuary or arm of the 
North Sea, and so has high and low tide. At low 
(or ebb) tide the canals are dry; and the poor throng 
the beds, rummaging for what they may find. When 
high tide sets in, a telephone message from the coast 
orders three cannon shots fired in the harbor, to warn 



A LITTLE JOUENEY TO GERMANY 87 

the people in the "fleets" to escape. If the tide is 
very dangerous six shots are fired. But when ebb 
tide returns, back the people come to their canals. 

Hamburg is a beautiful place in its newer part. 
It is a picturesque old city, with ancient streets of 
high-gabled houses in its less fashionable quarters — 
houses with quaint muUioned windows, and steep 
red or violet tiled roofs. They have cellars which 
extend out in front and are spanned by curious old 
stairs like drawbridges, and carved timbers, and 
high-peaked doorways, and door knockers, and 
casements, and every manner of curious adornment. 

This noble old city with a population now of over 
seven hundred thousand inhabitants has a history 
dating back many centuries. It was a leading town 
in the Hanseatic League — a confederation of com- 
mercial cities, formed in the thirteenth century to 
protect their commerce from pirates, robbers, and 
other enemies of their rich merchants. Lubeck, 
Bremen, Cologne and Dantzic were among the other 
Hanse Towns. Some of the old houses of the 
wealthy Hanseatic merchants still stand in Hamburg. 

We go all through the prosperous suburbs, seeing 
factories and workshops on every side; and^ through 
the fashionable suburbs full of elegant villas; and we 
ride over miles of clean streets and wonder what 
becomes of the dirt, for the emigrants who come to 
our country from Hamburg are often unclean ob- 
jects to behold. The garbage is burned. There are 
day and night forces of street cleaners ; and there are 
now disinfecting stations for the people and their 
goods, where dirt is removed wholesale. 



88 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

We go to the Bourse, a place where thousands of 
merchants meet to transact business; and see the 
Zoological and Botanical Gardens, among the finest 
in Germany; we view the grand old churches, notable 
for their lofty towers, and find that St. Nicholas 
has the third highest spire in Europe. We hunt up 
the synagogue, or Jewish temple. Hamburg has a 
large Jewish population. We find the library, and 
hospitals, and the markets. « 

Here is the largest market in the world for live 
animals. The managers of museums, menageries, 
and "zoo" gardens depend largely upon Hamburg 
for their supplies of tigers, bears, lions, leopards, 
wolves, boa-constrictors, and tropical birds. Boat- 
loads of these "forest folk" arrive constantly. This 
market is so fascinating that we have no desire to 
see the other sights of the town. 

Sometimes one spies a peasant woman in the 
costume of her district — a short, bright sldrt, a 
high, square bodice with full white sleeves, a red 
handkerchief around her shoulders, and on her head 
the most curious head-dress you ever set your e3^es 
upon. It looks something like a skullcap with a 
flaring black bow at the back, or maybe it resembles 
a shallow inverted flat basket. 

In the shops we see great quantities of candy 
called St. Mark's bread, or marzipan. It is the name of 
a dainty which is made into bon-bons of every size 
and shape you could imagine, all, however, having 
the flavor of vanilla and rose water and almonds. 
Some of it is made into tiny sugar potatoes with 
"eyes" that seem like those of real potatoes; there 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



89 



are apples and peaches and pears and grapes and 
nuts, all made of the same delicious marzipan. 

And there are also little round loaves an inch long. 
Now, why do you suppose this candy is made up 
into these little loaves, like bread? Thereby hangs 
a tale. Once upon a time there was a famine in 
Lubeck. As flour grew scarcer, and higher in price, 




ISLAND OF RTJGEN, BALTIC COAST 



the bakers were compelled to make their loaves 
smaller and smaller. You can imadne the hunoier 
of the poor people when the loaves finally were 
reduced to one inch in length. On St. Mark's Day 
the famine was commemorated, while the size and 
shape of the pitiful loaves are preserved in this candy, 
which you will probably find nowhere but in North 
Germany. 



90 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

BALTIC COAST PLACES 

Sixty-five miles north of Hamburg, on the Baltic 
Sea, is Kiel, a town of great commercial importance. 
We go by steamer from Hamburg down the Elbe 
to its mouth. At the town of Brunsbruttel the 
steamer enters the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, which 
cuts across Holstein to the Bay of Kiel. This great 
ship canal was opened to commerce, June 21, 1895, 
with a splendid celebration in which the navies of 
Russia, Austria, Italy, France, and Great Britain 
took part. 

Why make such a stir over this canal? Indeed, 
the Germans might well celebrate, for it gave to 
all the Baltic coast ports a short route to the North 
Sea. The map shows us what a long journey ships 
had to make, and that, too, along a dangerous coast, 
before the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal was opened. We 
make the trip through the canal in thirteen hours, 
where formerly it required over three days to go 
by steamer from Hamburg to Kiel. 

In times of peace this canal is open to all men- 
of-war; but in war time it may be used only by the 
German Navy. Emperor William I. began this great 
waterway in 1887, digging with his own hands the 
first spadeful of earth, near Kiel. It is almost sixty- 
two miles long; the width of its bottom is seventy- 
two feet, that of its surface is two hundred and 
thirteen feet, and its depth is twenty-nine and one 
-half feet. 

We visit the German Naval Academy at Kiel, 
where naval officers are educated. Every boy loves 
a ship, and here our boys may look upon perfect 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 91 

models of ships of* every pattern. These are for 
the boys at the Naval Academy to study. Every 
cadet of them must know these ships from end to 
end, learning the name and use of every rope, sail 
spar, and what-not of a full-rigged vessel. The train- 
ing is excellent. This Kiel Naval Academy is 
the most finely equipped naval school in Europe. 

We travel southeast from Kiel to Lubeck, an old 
Hanse town on the river Trave. Lubeck is a fine 
specimen of a German 'town of the Middle Ages. 
By Middle Ages one means the thirteenth, fourteenth, 
and fifteenth centuries. The old Rathhaus, or Town 
Hall, of Lubeck, where the Hanseatic League held 
its meetings, still stands. There is a large harbor 
here where from two to three thousand vessels enter 
each year. Much wine from France is brought to 
Lubeck for re-shipping through Germany. 

From Lubeck northeast to the Prussian province 
of Pomerania is a brief journey, Pomerania is a 
low, flat country, with a long coast line, and in winter 
a bleak sky and the coldest of cold climates. We 
come here to see the people, for the Pomeranians 
in remote villages and out-of-the-way corners still 
dress as quaintly and live in as old-time a fashion as 
one will find in Europe. 

The Island of Rugen, lying off the northwest 
coast of Pomerania attracts a host of tourists each 
year because of its picturesque scenery, its forests, 
its sea bathing, and its old-world peasantry. Rugen 
is the largest island belonging to Germany. It has 
numerous peninsulas and bays, the peninsula of 
Jasmond on the north being a high, chalky cliff, with 



92 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



rugged scenery and curious villages and a quaint folk 
whose speech, habits, and costumes are like that 
of no other people. 

Goose-girls are a common sight in Rugen, which 
is famous for its flocks. When we see a goose-girl 
knitting under a beech tree, her feathered charges 




COSTUMES SEEN AT RUGEN 



straying over the meadow, the blue sea in sight and 
the wooded cliffs making a picture before her — when 
we see all this, we want to be goose-girls ourselves. 
Then we go down to the beach and watch the 
fishermen hauling in their nets or rowing their boats 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 93 

through the surf, with a wholesome smell of dried 
herring and salt air and sail-cloth and oil-skin coats 
enlivening our noses — and we want above all things 
to be Rugen fishermen. 

The herring fisheries are very important in Rugen. 
All along the Baltic herrings, salmon, eels, and mack- 
erel are caught. Germany gets cod and oysters 
from the North Sea, and sturgeon from the Elbe 
and Oder rivers. 

The Oder River flows through Pomerania into the 
Baltic. On its west bank is Stettin, one of the chief 
seaports of Prussia and the capital of the province 
of Pomerania. It is a fortress, with barracks, gar- 
rison, and outworks; and it has a castle four hundred 
years old. Stettin streets are hilly, and from the 
castle tower one looks upon a busy folk climbing 
up and down its uneven ways. They manufacture 
glass, beer, soap, hats, and candles. 

The port of Stettin is on one of the three mouths 
of the Oder; and here the largest ships weigh anchor. 
Ship supplies are manufactured at Stettin, and in 
the famous Vulcan Ship Yards large ocean vessels 
are built. In a few months the new ocean liner 
Kaiser William II. will be launched from these 
yards. 

The Kaiser William II. is the longest ship in the 
world, and the fastest. Nineteen hundred passengers 
can be accommodated on board, which, with officers 
and crew, make two thousand, five hundred per- 
sons — a good-sized villageful of people. 

Throughout Pomerania we find many lakes, while 
forests, meadows, and fields of rye, potatoes, oats. 



94 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



wheat, barley, tobacco in small quantities; and beet- 
root (for sugar), cover the less sandy barren regions. 
The farm lands belong to large estates owned by the 
nobility. A large manor house has a fine park about 




COSTUME SEEN ON THE ISLAND OF RTJGEN 



it, and elsewnere on the estate is a little village for 
the farm laborers. 

We visit a manor as guests of the lady of the manor. 
We sit on the hair-cloth sofa in a prim drawing room, 
where the furniture is heavy, solemn-looking, and 
costly. A maid serves us with lemonade and sand- 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 95 

wiches and radishes — radishes being a favorite relish. 
The hall is a brick-paved corridor with gloomy, 
dark walls, whereon hang guns, swords, hunting gear 
and riding whips enough to stock a museum. The 
bed rooms have the short narrow bedsteads and feather- 
bed coverings of all German homes. The dining room 
is heavily paneled in time-stained wood, while dark 
pictures of distinguished ancestors of the family 
hang upon the walls. 

Then we enter a laborer's hut in the village; but 
hurriedly leave it, for every door and window is 
closed to keep out the air. Impure air is no annoy- 
ance to Germans, whether peasants or lords. They 
keep their houses air-tight, and wonder why they 
are sick so often in winter. 

Peat is the fuel used in these peasant homes, and 
pork is the chief article of food. A peat fire over which 
sausage sizzles burns in every little cottage. These 
tiny houses, poorly furnished, have but one room, 
and that usually full of children. 

AMBER 

The old city of Dantzic on the northeastern coast 
of the Baltic is noted for its amber. Its shops are 
full of amber necklaces, combs, bracelets, pipes, 
and ornaments. Many of these articles are richly 
carved and of great value; but their price now is 
nothing compared with their value in ancient times. 
Himdreds of years before Christ amber was used 
for rare ornaments. 

A shopkeeper in Dantzic tells us that the price of 
even a small amber figure, among the old Romans, 



96 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

was greater than that of "a hving, healthy slave." 
In those days, babies wore amber necklaces because 
the parents believed that these protected their in- 
fants from witchcraft and evil spells. 

The Greeks thought this yellowish substance pos- 
sessed of magic powers, for when they rubbed a bit 
of amber with silk it drew toward it objects of light 
weight, such as paper, straws, or leaves — just as a 
magnet draws iron. The Greeks called amber elek- 
tron, from which came our modern word electricity. 

We go down the coast to see the amber fishers, 
and later to other points to see the amber miners. 
But strange to say, amber is neither fish nor mineral. 
It is believed to be formed from the gum of a tree 
just as resin comes from the pine. But amber is the 
tree gum in a fossilized state. Often masses of amber 
show within them fossil insects, leaves, twigs, and 
the like; or they have markings on their surface show- 
ing forms of plant or insect life. The pieces found 
are never very large; in Berlin a mass of amber 
weighing eighteen pounds is kept as a curiosity, being 
the largest piece ever found. 

After a heavy storm the waves wash up lumps of 
amber from the shallow depths near the shore; and 
here is where we see the amber fishers. Men and 
women stand in the water up to their waists, hunting 
for the treasure. It is a yellowish substance, some- 
times quite transparent, being hard, brittle, and 
capable of a high polish. It looks like play to see 
the fishers frolicing in the water, snatching easily at 
the amber masses; but it is a hard life, we are told. 

In regions along the coast, thousands of people are 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 97 

engaged in digging amber from the earth where it is 
found at a depth of from sixty to one hundred feet. 
The Baltic coast from the earliest ages has sup- 
plied by far the greatest amount of all the amber 
found in the world. Long before the time of Christ 
this region was called the "Amber-land"; and in 
long, long-gone days Dantzic was founded. 

We like Dantzic. It has an old city gate, and an 
old Town Hall, and an old Arsenal — all of them 
like pages from some musty picture book of our 
great-great-grandparents. Besides, Dantzic is a fort- 
ress of the first rank and has stood terrible sieges — 
especially during Napoleon's wars. Nowadays it is 
just a busy port for grain and timber-— the great 
grain port of Germany. 

IN SILESIA 

A brief trip is made to Konigsberg, a fortified city 
on the Pregel, five miles from its port. Konigsberg' s 
port is entered by seventeen hundred vessels yearly; 
they bring tea, iron and salt and carry away vast 
supplies of grain. Factories here make woolen, silk, 
and leather goods, and iron foundries, machine shops, 
breweries, and dye-works give the old fortress city 
a business-like, prosperous air. 

And now we leave the Baltic coast, turning south- 
ward for a journey through the Prussian province 
of Silesia. There are many things to be seen here: 
the zinc mines, for instance, the richest in the world, 
and the marble quarries, and the jaspers, agates, and 
amethysts, not to mention the commoner minerals: 
coal, lead, copper, cobalt, and arsenic. Then we 



98 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



see the great estates of the wealthy, some of them 
covering one hundred thousand acres. Often the 
farm-laborers on these estates are Poles, for Silesia 
has a large Polish population. 

Flax is a common crop, and so are sugar beets, and 
hops for beer, and mulberry trees for silk culture. 
Richly wooded sections are full of wild game. Hunt- 
ers prowl through the forests, and the crack of a 




DRESDEN 



rifle often breaks the silence of woods and mountains. 
Hares, red deer, wolves, and wild boars are found. 

We stop in Breslau, the capital of vSilesia. It is 
built on both banks of the Oder River, which we first 
saw at Stettin. We must buy linen in Breslau, and 
lace too. We may see the linen being woven in the 
cottages of these Silesian peasants. And the lace 
is made by women in their poor little hovels among 
the mountains. It looks somewhat like Brussels 
lace, but is coarser. 

Silesian linen has a high reputation. We think 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 99 

it a fine sight to see acres of green grass covered with 
the long strips of. Hnen bleaching in the sun. All 
along the Riesenbirge, or Giant Mountains, the peasants 
are busy spinning flax, weaving linen, and sprinkling 
the strips spread out in the sun. 

Breslau is noted not only for its linen trade, but for 
its wool markets — the chief wool market of continental 
Europe. Merino sheep were first brought into Silesia 
by Frederick the Great. From Brelsau we go by 
carriage toward Dresden over a wild and picturesque 
road leading through dense forests and beside moun- 
tain torrents. Silesia is a Roman Catholic province, and 
mountain shrines for praying pilgrims are often seen 
buried deep among the trees or standing on some 
hill-top, while the road here- and there is marked with 
crosses bearing life-size figures of the Christ. 

DRESDEN 

Arriving in Dresden, the beautiful '' Florence of 
the North," we gladly unpack our trunks at our pen- 
sion, for we wish to stay here as long as possible. 
Dresden has a wealth of art treasures, like Florence, 
the lovely old Italian city. And it is so attractive 
in every other way that many foreigners make it 
their home. We find friends from America in plenty 
residing in Dresden apartment houses, and in the 
villas bordering the Elbe banks. Here, indeed, we see 
the Elbe River again, the same noble stream down 
which we traveled to Hamburg.' Dresden lies on 
both banks, with bridges connecting the two parts. 

Let us cross this old bridge, the finest stone bridge 
in Europe, say some. Its great piers look as if built 
- L.ofC. ■ 



100 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



for eternity. We look down upon them from the 
raised stone sidewalk bordering either side of the 
bridge. Money to build this old bit of masonry 
was raised by the Pope. He sold people the privilege 
of eating butter and eggs during Lent, and gave 
the proceeds to the bridge fund. 

We cross to the Bruhl Terrace beyond, a lovely 
promenade along the river banks. One ascends to 
the Terrace by broad flights of steps, and from the 
highest point looks up and down the river, where 





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ATJGTJSTA BRIDGE AND ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, DRESDEN 

thousands of lights at night are reflected in the water, 
and where steamers and boats of every style dance 
about like fireflies, while bands play in the open-air 
cafes on the Terrace, and people make merry at the 
tables scattered under the trees. 

The chief art collections of Dresden are found in 
the Zwinger, the picture gallery of the New Museum, 
the "Green Vault" of the royal palace, and the Jap- 
anese Palace. They have been gathered together 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



101 



by different kings of Saxony, for Dresden is the cap- 
ital city of this historical little kingdom. 

One Saxon ruler, in the days of Frederick the 
Great, set out to build a stately palace. But he 
got no farther than the vestibule, which is now called 
the Zwinger. It contains a zoological and min- 
eralogical collection, and a museum of antiquity. 

But the picture gallery lures us from every other 
sight in Dresden We must see it — one picture m 
it — if we see nothing else in Germany. This Royal 




ART GALLERY AT DRESDEN 



Gallery draws thousands of tourists to the Saxon 
capital every year, and the first picture they search 
for is the Sistine Madonna. Raphael painted it in 
1515 (or thereabouts) for the altar of a monastery 
in a little Italian town. Two hundred years later 
the king of Saxony bought it for sixty thousand 
thalers, to adorn the Dresden gallery. And here 
it will always stay, for no price can buy it., Dresden 
has refused an offer of over a million dollars for it. 



102 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

We pass through great halls, opening one into the 
other, all full of beautiful pictures by the great masters 
of many lands, Vandyck, Rembrandt, Titian, and 
Correggio. Presently we open a door into a small 
room, where in the half light we see people sitting 
on seats along the wall. They are gazing steadily 
at the one picture which covers a large space on the 
opposite wall. A single window lights the . room. 
We too find seats and raise our eyes to the canvas. 
This is the Madonna, hung in a room by itself. '' Upon 
a cloud, Mary walks or floats. About her are other 
clouds made up of half -revealed angel faces. Mary's 
face is perfect in form and feature. Her eyes look 
above and beyond the beholder. The child (Christ) 
is serious, sad, with a baby face, and eyes which look 
straight at one." 

The figures are life-size, the entire painting being 
eight and a half feet high and six and a half feet 
wide. 

Another Madonna, painted by Holbein, is also in a 
room by itself. It is beautiful, but far less im- 
pressive than Raphael's. People have been known 
to burst into tears before the lovely vision of the 
Sistine Madonna. Many stand in prayer before it — 
as if before the very Christ-Child himself. 

Other celebrated paintings in this gallery are 
Correggio's "Holy Night," Hofmann's "Jesus in the 
Temple," Munkaczy's "Crucifixion," and the "Mag- 
dalene Reading," a small painting on copper, of 
almost priceless value. 

The " Green Vault" in the royal palace is so named 
from its original decorations. Its collection of prec- 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



i03 



ious stones, pearls, shells, mosaics, corals, bronzes, works 
of art in gold, silver, amber and ivory, regalia and 
swords, is the richest of its kind. We see a pearl 
the size of a hen's egg, formed into a figure repre- 
senting the dwarf of Charles II. of Spain. One bit 
of exquisite work by Dinglinger, a celebrated gold- 
smith, is a group called "The Court of the Great 
Mogul." There are 321 figures in the group, which 
is made of gold and enamel upon a silver plate four 




MARKETPLACE AT DRESDEN 



feet four inches square. The artist, his family, and 
fourteen workmen spent eight years upon this group. 

The Japanese Palace contains a museum, library, 
and a collection of porcelain and terra cottas. The 
Museum Johanneum, in another quarter, has a rich 
collection of porcelains, from the earliest production 
of Bottcher, the Dresden chemist, down to the prod- 
ucts of the famous royal porcelain works at Meissen. 

Meissen is a suburb of Dresden, situated a few miles 



104 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



distant on the Elbe. We go there by steamer and 
wander over the old palace of the early Saxon kings, 
which has a splendid position on a high, rocky cliff. 
In this palace Bottcher discovered the process of 
making the beautiful glazed china for which Dresden 
is noted Dresden china, or Meissen porcelain, is 
now made in the great factory opposite this castle. 

A guide shows us through the factory, which is as 
solidly-built and as large as a palace. The store 




MEISSEN 



rooms are crowded with porcelain ware; table ser- 
vices, vases, toilet sets, clocks, tiles, porcelain paint- 
ings, and other articles of use or luxury. 

The porcelain is made of a mixture of kaolin (a 
white clay) and feldspar. The kaolin is sifted and 
filtered until pure, and the feldspar is melted, pounded 
and sifted. The mixture is made into dough by 
adding water and is thus ready for the potter at his 
wheel.. Moulds are used to ornament the articles 
after they are shaped by the potter. And after 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 105 

moulding, the pieces are passed on to the modelers 
and retouchers for further careful trimming and 
decorating. Then the objects are baked in ovens, 
and afterward glazed by dipping them in tubs of 
glazing material. The celebrated " hall mark" or 
trade-mark of Meissen ware is the crossed swords 
painted on the bottom of each article. After glazing, 
the pieces are painted and gilded. Famous artists 
are engaged in the finest work; and there is a training 
school connected with the factory where students 
learn the art of china decoration under master artists. 

In the time of Napoleon, French workmen at the 
Sevres china works were surpassing Meissen in the 
delicate colors of their porcelain. But the Meissen 
factory learned their^ secrets and astonished Napoleon 
by giving him a service of Meissen china decorated 
with scenes from his own life and colored in exact 
imitation of the Sevres tints. — *-' * 

A part of the mountain district of Meissen, extend- 
ing on both banks of the Elbe to the border of Bo- 
hemia, is called Saxon Switzerland. It is a picturesque 
region of hills and valleys, with views over the river, 
up deep ravines, and across the lonely country. Tour- 
ists visit its many points of interest by thousands. 
We make a walking tour through Saxon Switzerland, 
and then turning northward again make bur way to 
Leipsic, the second city of importance in Saxony. 

LEIPSIC 

Leipsic is situated in a large plain at the junction 
of three rivers, and is one of the richest towns in 
Germany. It has many quaint old houses, a univer- 



106 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

sity, an ancient castle, and a beautiful promenade 
surrounding the town, formed from the old city ram- 
parts. Along the promenade one sees monuments of 
the illustrious men of Leipsic, for it is a city cele- 
brated for its great men and events. 

At Leipsic was fought the battle between Napoleon 
and the allied armies of Europe, which ended in 
Napoleon's banishment to Elba. Without the city 
is a granite block which marks the spot where Na- 
poleon stood while watching his army on the plain 
beyond. Leipsic has many monuments erected in 
memory of this battle. 

The old city is noted, as well, for its book trade. 
There are many large printing houses here, besides 
several hundred book shops. At Easter each year 
a great fair is held, to which merchants, manufacturers, 
and especially booksellers come by thousands from 
every part of the world, even from the far East. 

The Conservatory of Music is the center of music 
study in Germany, though that of Berlin is fast be- 
coming its rival. Music students crowd to Leipsic just 
as artists crowd to Paris. This conservatory was founded 
by the composer Mendelssohn a little less than one 
hundred years ago. We visited Mendelssohn's grave 
in Berlin; and we are constantly coming across some 
monument to a great composer, or some old house 
with a tablet over its door relating that here was 
born one of the Fatherland's masters of music. 

Everywhere in Germany honor is done to her great- 
est musicians. Who are these men whose fame is 
the chief glory of their country? The list is long: 
Bach, Handel, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, 



A LITTLE JOUKNEY TO GERMANY 107 

Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Wagner are the greatest 
of the briUiant company- 
Bach's home was in Leipsic, and his monument 
stands on the promenade encirchng the city. The 
monument (a bust) was raised to his memory by 
Mendelssohn. Johann Sebastian Bach is called the 
"father of modern music." He was born in 1685 at 
Eisenach and spent fifty years in composing, directing 




THE CONCERT HALL AT LEIPSIC 



concerts, and acting as chapel-master in the cathedrals. 
As an organ-player he had no equal. Every Easter 
his wonderful "Passion Music" is performed in the 
churches throughout Germany. Shortly before his 
death he became blind from his hard labor We 
may see his grave in the churchyard at Leipsic — 
the grave of Germany's first great musician. 

Handel, too, was born in 1685, at Halle in Lower 



108 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

Saxony. As a boy he loved music, and the story is 
that his father looked on his son's musical tastes as 
a disgrace to the family. He ordered the child to 
leave music alone. But Handel found an old spinet 
hidden in the garret, and used to steal away to this 
poor instrument and play by the hour. Once his 
father took him to the palace of a duke, where the 
boy strayed about and at length found the chapel 
with its organ. At once he began to play, and the 
duke, hearing wonderful music, learned with amaze- 
ment that the player was a mere boy. The duke 
advised Handel's father to give him every encourage- 
ment; and thus began his musical career. 

Handel's oratorios are his compositions best known 
to us — ^the oratorios of "Saul,'' with its wonderful 
'^ Dead March"; and the ^'Messiah," with its glori- 
ous ' ' Hallelu j ah Chorus ' ' ; and the ' ' Samson . ' ' Han- 
del' s life was spent — the latter half of it — in England. 
He was blind, like Bach, for seven or eight years 
before his death, which occurred on Good Friday 
night, 1759. 

Mozart's musical gifts appeared when he was four 
years old. His father found the child writing a 
concerto for the piano, and on looking at it wept 
with joy, for it was accurate and even difficult. 

"It is good," said a friend who was present, "but 
too difficult for general use." 

"Oh," said little Mozart, "it must be practised 
till it is learned. This is the way it goes." And 
seating himself at the piano, he played it with per- 
fect correctness. 

His father was court musician at Solzburg, and 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 109 

gave him the most careful training At the age of 
six the child was famous. He was taken to Vienna 
to play at the Austrian court, and to Berlin and 
other German cities, and to Paris and London. Every- 
where he was petted by kings and queens and other 
great folk, who were astonished and delighted with 




THOMAS CHURCH AND SCHOOL, LEIPSIC 

his extraordinary genius. But though gifts were 
showered upon him, he and his father remained poor. 
"We have swords, laces, mantillas, snuff-boxes, gold 
cases, sufficient to furnish a shop," wrote his father, 
"but as for money, it is a scarce article, and I am 
positively poor." 

Lack of money pinched Mozart all his life, but he 
worked without rest, writing music — operas, sonatas, 
and symphonies of marvelous beauty and power. 



110 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 

His operas "The Marriage of Figaro" and "Don 
Giovanni" are chief among his masterpieces. In 
1791 he composed the "Magic Flute," the first Ger- 
man opera of great merit, also his "Requiem Mass," 
which he was striving to finish at his death. The 
story of this "Mass" is a pitiful one. 

Mozart was very ill and had a presentiment that his 
end was near. One night a stranger appeared, 
dressed in somber gray, and ordered a requiem to 
be composed without fail within a month. A re- 
quiem is a lament for the dead (or a funeral mass). 
The visitor did not give his name, and departed in 
such mystery and gloom that Mozart was troubled. 
Shortly afterward the stranger called again and 
solemnly reminded Mozart of his promise. The sick 
composer believed that this was a visitor from the 
other world, and that the requiem was ordered for 
his own burial. He brooded over the Mass, laboring 
until he swooned in his chair. 

His last work was an effort to complete this mourn- 
ful, exquisite composition; but he died one dark 
December day, leaving it still unfinished. He was 
buried in a pauper's grave in Vienna, because his 
wife had no money with which to buy a coffin. Thirty- 
five years was the brief span of his life; and yet the 
world has been enriched forever with his music. 

Beethoven was born at Bonn (near Cologne) in 
1770. Unlike Mozart, he hated music when a lad, 
and had to be whipped by his father before he would 
sit down to the harpsichord to practise. After the 
age of ten, he began to show his genius, and he won 
the applause of leading musicians, who wondered at 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



111 



his power. He, too, was bitterly poor, and about the 
age of thirty lost his hearing. This deep misfortune 
caused him the greatest agony of mind; but it in 
nowise spoiled his career. 

His works are so many and show such genius that no 
name among German musicians stands higher than his. 
His opera of ''Fidelis" is considered the finest of 



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MOZART AT WOEK ON HIS REQUIEM 



its kind ever written. His symphonies are equally 
great; and besides, there are many songs, ma;sses, 
and other compositions to prove his life one of toil. 
He died at Vienna in his fifty-seventh year. 

Leipsic is one great music-box, with its pianos and 
organs and violins all a-go, day and night. Music 



112 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO GERMANY 



students lead no easy life under German masters; 
but if the training is severe, the skill gained pays for 
the toil. We attend concerts given by the star pupils 
of the Conservatory, and hear many artists of note, 
as well. 

With music ringing in our ears, we turn southward 
to visit Munich, Nuremberg, and the dear old Rhine- 
land cities. South Germany lies before us. So fare- 
well to this German northland, and farewell to our 
North German friends— but no; let us say instead 
the sweet German words of parting, " Auf wieder- 
sehen"— "Till we meet again." 




BACH AND HIS FAMILY AT MORNING PRAYERS 
BACH IS CALLED "THE FATHER OP MODERN MUSIO' 




JJTTtI> JOURNEir 

TO 

ORTH GERMANY 



pMMHMHHMBHMla 



MARIAN M. GEORGE, Editor 
A. FLANAGAN CO., Publishers 



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LITTLE JOURNEYS 



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160, pages, 7j4x5;'2 iucb.es, clotli, 60 illustra'tions, hand- 
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176 pages, 7^4x5j^ inches, c'loth 
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178 pages. 74 illustrations. Flags in colors. 50 cents,, 

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174 pages. Colored Maps, 74 illustrations. SO cents. 

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A. 

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"~i 



266 W/3P^5t! mm. ^M!Ci3Q0 



A Young' Man's 

Problems 

CONTENTS 

VXt0 FLestless Ye«trs— Or, The Problem of a Pursuit la Life. 



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Having a Puirpose — Or^ Tfie Problem of Concentra^ Effort* 

[VAO Value of HoaltH— Or, Tbe Problem of Vital Force* 

iTHrougK Doubt to FaitK— Qr» The Problem of a Tr 
Betrayed, 

Concluct ToTirard 'Woman— Or, The Probkm of Self Restraint. 

Doing As OtKers Do— Or, The Problem of Sdli Respect. 

Self Control— Or, The Problem of Resisting Temptation. 

eS^m Value of An Education— Or, The Problem of Trained 
Powers. 



A Good Name— Or, The Problem <rf a Clean Record. 



Self Approval vs. Mone;*— Or, Tlie Problem of Fair Deling. 



. CKoosing His Life VITorK— Or, The Problem of One's Busi- 
ness Bent. 

A "Woman After His Oifvn Heart— Or, The Problem of % 
Happy Marrias:e. 

C%a Stx-pretno Aim— Or, The Problem of the Right Standard. 

These are some of the problems of iuteuse interest that the anthor bring* into til ^ 
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CMA. 148 pages. Price, $0 cents. 



LBy LoRBNzo Carson McLbod. 



A. Flanagan Company 



PUBLISHERS 266 Wabaah Ave. 

Q. P. 0. M^r., '06. 



CHICAGO 



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